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Ube laniversits ot Cbicaao 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL 

THEORY FROM THE STANDPOINT 

OF "INSTRUMENTAL" LOGIC 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND 
LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

doctor of philosophy 
(department of education) 



BY 

DANIEL AMBROSE TEAR 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

1908 



XTbe IHniversitp ot CbicaQO 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL 

THEORY FROM THE STANDPOINT 

OF "INSTRUMENTAL" LOGIC 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND 

LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(department of education) 



BY 

DANIEL AMBROSE TEAR 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

1908 



UBrtAsy of C0fri;:;issi' 
!*o Copies Hetoi 

1 ii\ AH 16 l^iJQ 



Copyright 1908 By 
The University of Chicago 



Published March 1908 



Composed and Printed By 

The University of Chicago Press 

Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 
FROM THE STANDPOINT OF "INSTRUMENTAL" 
LOGIC 

INTRODUCTION 

It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the logical nature of 
the process of education. Education is taken to mean the way 
experience develops, or realizes itself. A theory of education is an 
interpretation of this process of self-realization. Logical theory is 
an account of "our thinking behavior ;" "thinking" being the con- 
structive movement in this process of development. The subject- 
matter of logic, then, is the operation of thought in the development 
of experience; and, if this development is education, the theory 
of logic one accepts must determine his theory of education. 

This view looks upon education as a process continuing from 
birth to death. While education in its narrower sense, as synony- 
mous with instruction, will receive attention, the primary purpose 
is to discuss education in its larger meaning. 

The first part of this paper will be devoted to a brief outline of 
the historical development of "instrumental" logic, and to an expo- 
sition of that theory as worked out by recent writers on the subject, 
particularly by Dr. Dewey. No claim to originality is made in the 
general logical view presented. The purpose has been to present 
the theory as understood after a careful study of available material. 
It is probable that the interpretation has not been at all times true 
to the thought of the authors, particularly in some minor phases 
which have not been fully developed in the publications of the 
writers. 

The second part of the paper will be devoted to a discussion 
of the educational theory which follows from this theory of logic. 
It is not the primary purpose to indicate a detailed method of 
instruction, though the mere statement of an educational theory 
must furnish the basis of, and indicate along broad lines, the 
general method which must be followed in all education. 

Ps3xhology is so intimately related to both logic and education 
that it seems necessary to discuss quite fully the psychological 

3 



4 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

nature of certain parts of the problem. In both the logical and 

educational discussions free use will be made of psychological 

material. 

I 

LOGICAL THEORY 

In this brief statement of logical theory only those phases of 
the subject will be discussed that throw some light on educational 
procedure. Since the time of Aristotle, the operation of thought 
has received serious attention. Two general points of view have 
developed. One is known as formal logic, the other has been called 
instrumental logic. Formal logic treats of the operation of thought 
as carried on in reflective thinking. It takes thought as such and 
endeavors to discover and formulate the laws and principles of 
accurate thinking. The content of the concepts with which it 
operates is regarded as given independently of thought's operation. 
While formal logic may discuss the way bare sensations are molded 
into ideas and concepts so as to become fit objects for thought, its 
real concern is with how truth may be deduced from these concepts 
through judgment and inference. 

On the other hand, the term "instrumental" is applied to that 
view of logic which holds that thought, human thought, has a part 
in the actual constituting of reality. It investigates not merely 
the concepts as given, but also their genesis and how thought deter- 
mines the actual content of these concepts. Thought is not looked 
upon as engaged in reproducing an external world of reality, but as 
having a part in the actual constituting of reality. Whatever our 
thinking may assume to exist as exterior to and independent of 
thought, instrumental logic holds that such assumptions are mere 
postulates and that the content of thought, as we know it, bears the 
unmistakable character of thought's construction. 

This conception of the creative character of thought is not 
new. Wundt points out that it preceded the development of formal 
logic. He says, "The Eleatic and Platonic dialectic are controlled 
by it [thought as instrument in creating reality] , and a caricature 
of the same meets us in the fallacious conclusions and dilemmas of 
the Sophists." ^ 

Aristotle is the father of formal logic. He took up the prob- 
lem of discovering and formulating the laws of thought, and 

^ Logik, Band I, s. 3. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 5 

developed a complete system. The Aristotelian logic assumed that 
"objects" are given independently of thought, and the intellectual 
processes were regarded as entirely dependent upon these objects. 
This view of thought was generally accepted up to the time of 
Kant. 

Kant marks an epoch in the evolution of thought. Not satisfied 
with the previous attempts of philosophy, which had failed to 
remove the opposition between thought and being but had made 
idealism or realism absolute, Kant subjected the entire theory of 
knowledge to a searching criticism. As a result of his investiga- 
tions, Kant differentiates sharply the theoretical reason from the 
practical. On the theoretical side, in accepting phenomena revealed 
in sensation as real and absolute, and yet holding that they cannot 
become knowledge except in and through thought which determines 
the forms and conditions of their cognition, Kant exalts thought 
and makes it a real and necessary factor in the development of 
knowledge. While stoutly maintaining the existence of a world of 
reality independent of thought, he yet contends that phenomena are 
so modified and determined by thought that it is impossible to know 
the real character of the thing-in-itself ; that the theoretical reason 
cannot go beyond phenomena and establish extra-experiential truth. 
It is limited to the sensuous given. 

On the other hand, in Kant's critique of the practical reason, 
pure reason is made to determine a priori the will in respect of 
objects.- In the theoretical reason truth is derived from sense 
phenomena; in the practical reason there is recognized "a higher 
source of motives in which not sense but reason is the lawgiver."^ 
Here the will is supreme and it follows "not incentives from with- 
out, but obeys, with absolute freedom, a higher practical principle 
of the reason." - From the possibility of a moral law is derived 
the idea of freedom ; from that of perfect virtue is borrowed the 
idea of immortality; from the necessary demand for perfect happi- 
ness follows the idea of God.^ 

This recognition that phenomena in becoming knowledge must 
take on necessary forms of thought, that here reason is limited to 
sense, but that pure reason may determine the will with absolute 
freedom, was a revolution in epistemology. Yet Kant did not 

^ Schwegler, History of Philosophy (Seeley's transl.), pp. 290, 291. 
' Ibid., pp. 296, 297. 



6 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

regard thought as really creative in the sense of actually constituting 
reality. 

In the development of Kantian idealism by Fichte, Schelling, 
and Hegel, there is the attempt to present a world-view founded 
on the "system of reason." Thought as the world-activity was 
here supreme. 

Among modern logicians Sigwart's view of the nature of 
thought as independent and self-supporting, and his idea of how the 
concept of reality is derived from thought, are particularly interest- 
ing and suggestive. He says, "If we consider the nature of thought, 
we find that an important part of it is engaged in the attempt to 
arrive at propositions which are certain and luiivcrsaUy valid." * 
Further, "From a psychological point of view, everything which 
the individual thinks may be looked upon as necessary," but besides 
this necessity "there is another which springs entirely from the 
contents and object of thought."^ This "certainty" and "universal 
validity" which he makes the end of thought is to be found within 
thought itself, and is not grounded upon an external, independent 
reality. He makes this point explicit. 

We cannot refute the critical assertion that immediately, and in the first 
instance, all our knowledge is something for us, consisting in a system of 
ideas. That there is an Existent corresponding to this Thought of ours and 
in accordance with it, is either a blind belief, or the certainty must be grounded 
upon a refutation of the doubt it dispels — upon the proof that doubt is 
impossible." .... The proof rests upon a necessity in Thought. It may be 
counted among the surest results of an analysis of our knowledge that every 

assumption of an external world is mediated by Thought Thus except 

by Thought, we have no means of ascertaining whether we have really 
achieved our purpose of knowing the Existent; the possibility of comparing 
our knowledge with things as they exist apart from our knowledge is forever 
closed to us.^ .... We may thus unhesitatingly say that if all we can attain 
to is necessary and universally valid Thought, then knowledge of the Exist- 
ent is included therein.^ 

Here we find explicit recognition of the dependence of reality 
as known upon thought. Sigwart does not deny the existence of an 
external world. In fact, he assumes such existence, and much of 
his discussion of logic is based upon this assumption. But he 

* Logic (Dendy's transl.), Vol. I, p. i. 

^ Ibid., p. 6. ' Ibid., p. 7. 

« Ibid., pp. 6, 7. " Ibid., p. 8. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 7 

shows clearly that it is an assumption which depends wholly for 
its proof "upon the necessity in thought." For knowledge, all 
reality is the result of the operation of thought. 

Both Bosanquet and Bradley attempt to give thought a genuine 
work to do in constituting the "real world," and yet they retain the 
concept of an independent i-eality. 

Bosanquet makes thought a "living function" in the develop- 
ment of the world of reality as it exists for any individual. This 
world of the individual is actually constituted by thought. This 
character of thought and its relation to reality comes out in Bosan- 
quet's discussion of Truth. He says, 

If the object-matter of reality lay genuinely outside the system of thought, 
not only our analysis, but thought itself would be unable to lay hold of 
reality. For logic at all events, it is a postulate that "the truth is the 
whole." The forms of thought have the relation which is their truth in 
their pozvcr to constitute a totality The work of intellectually consti- 
tuting that totality which we call the real world, is the work of knowledge." 

But Bosanquet does not minimize the idea of the existence of 
an independent reality. Indeed, he makes such reality, as that got 
through sense-perception, the starting-point and core of the indi- 
vidual's real world. The act in which thought constitutes for 
itself, or "affirms," this real world is the judgment. 

The truth, the fact, the reality, may be considered, in relation to human 
intelligence, as the content of a single persistent and all-embracing judg- 
ment, by which every individual intelligence affirms the ideas that form its 
knowledge to be true of the world which is brought home to it as real by 
sense-perception [And] The real world for every individual is emphati- 
cally his world; an extension and determination of his present perception, 
which perception is to him not indeed reality as such, but his point of contact 
with reality as such." 

The question that concerns us here is : In what sense and to what 
extent does Bosanquet make thought really instrumental? The 
creative character of thought may be looked at from two points of 
view. First, To what extent is thought efficient and really creative 
in establishing and organizing this world of reality as it actually 
exists for human intelligence? Second, Does thought really have 
a part in constituting the real world as such ; or, to put it otherwise, 

° Logic, Vol. I, pp. 2, 3 (italics mine). 
1" Ibid., p. 3. 



8 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

is there a reality as such which is, in itself, in no way affected by 
thought, but which thought merely copies or reproduces? 

The above quotations prove, unquestionably, that Bosanquet 
would answer the first question affirmatively. The world, as we 
knoiv it, is constructed by thought. While he makes contact with 
reality through sense-perception the starting-point of thought, and 
the whole real world for the individual an extension, by means of 
judgment, of this immediate intuition, yet this reality got so at first 
hand is "indefinite," a "mere aspect," until determined and organ- 
ized by thought. 

As to the other question, Bosanquet ignores the point. Some 
expressions would indicate that thought merely discovers what is 
already there; but the whole attitude of his discussion leads to the 
conclusion that, for him, reality as such, apart from thought, is 
not the proper subject of logical discussion ; that what logic is con- 
cerned with is our world, and that world is constituted by thought. 

Bradley attacks directly the problem of the relation of thought 
to reality. He insists that thought is but an external tool, and yet 
he says that reality actually develops in our thinking. This con- 
tradiction comes out in his discussion of judgment. He defines the 
judgment proper as "the act which refers an ideal content (recog- 
nized as such) to a reality beyond the act.", " This judgment always 
refers, directly or indirectly, to present reality. As to the effect 
of thought on our conclusions, and, hence, on the constitution of 
our real world, Bradley says, 

It is assumed that, whatever in our reason may be arbitrary, yet at least 
the conclusions must follow from the premises naturally and necessarily, 
without altering or straining or even addition. If we can be shown of our 
own free choice to have forged one link in the chain of inference, then the 

connection snaps and the ends fall apart [And] An apparatus of 

proof has been compared to a scaffolding, which is removed when the edifice 
of reason has been built; yet, if zve have but placed the parts in conjunction, 
there is nothing which will hold when the scaffolding is gone."^ 

This shows conclusively that here Bradley looks upon thought as 
wholly external. 

But there is another side to Bradley's logic. He makes the 
statement that "reality develops," and this development appears to 

^^ Logic, p. 10. "Ibid., p. 454. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 9 

take place through thinking and because of thinking. In discussing 
the essence of reasoning, he says, 

.... at bottom, and in a struggling way, reasoning is really a self- 
development. Throughout the process our subject is developed, and again to 
some extent it develops itself." [Again,] Reality appears, .... as possess- 
ing an attribute or group of attributes, vi^hich is given with two separate sets 
of qualities. And in the result this basis through its own activity becomes 
explicit. We may say here, as everywhere, that the real subject, implicit at 
the start, and actiz'e in the middle, shows itself at the end by a development 

of some latent relation or quality, which it claims as an attribute And 

thus, in a certain sense, the movement of the subject has been a self- 
development; .... [and] if our process is not to end in ruin, the apparatus 
we have used (that is, scaffolding) must be simply a prop, supported on which 
the argument has grown up, till strong enough at last to support its own 
fruit and stand by itself." 

Here Bradley presents a wholly different view of thought. This 
idea of reasoning being a self -development, taken in connection 
with the "real subject" (that is the reality) as "active" and "develop- 
ing," would seem unquestionably to make thought instrumental in 
character. But in the working out of this point of view, Bradley 
leaves much to be desired. 

These idealistic logical theories of Sigwart, Bosanquet, and 
Bradley are in striking contrast to the theories of J. S. Mill and 
Wundt, each of whom develops a theory of logic based on the prac- 
tical methods of scientific investigation. 

J. S. Mill defines logic as "the science which treats of the 
operations of the human understanding in the pursuit of truth." ^^ 
By "truth" Mill seems to mean actual determinable experiences. 
There is the assumption that facts of experience have systematic 
connection, and that this may become known. It is the business of 
logic to investigate the process by which the mind may come into 
possession of this knowledge. 

Attention is called to two important characteristics of Mill's 
logic. First, it is a "logic of experience." He calls it the "logic 
of truth" as opposed to "formal logic" which he calls the "logic 

^^ Ibid., pp. 452, 453. 

^* Ibid., p. 454 (italics mine). 

" System of Logic, p. 3. 



lO THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

of consistency." Logic investigates "truth," and this truth, for 
Mill, is derived from experience. He says. 

Truths are known in two ways; some are known directly and of them- 
selves; some through the medium of other truth (which can, of course, be 
reduced to direct intuition). The former are the subject of Intuition,* or 

Consciousness ; the latter, of Inference."' [Again,] .... truth can only 

be successfully pursued by drawing inferences from experience." 

Mill's whole elaborate discussion is an attempt to get away from 
the abstraction and idealism that characterize previous logic. He 
recognizes that thinking is practical, and so would develop a 
theory of logic derived from the actual operation of thought in 
the scientific investigation of truth. 

The other characteristic is Mill's attitude toward the source of 
knowledge. The primary, irreducible data of experience are the 
states of consciousness — sensations, feelings, volitions. 
.... the best thinkers are now for the most part agreed that all we can 
know of matter is the sensations which it gives us, and the order of the 

occurrence of those sensations [And,] All attributes, therefore, are to 

us nothing but either our sensations and other states of feeling, or some- 
thing inextricably included therein ^^ 

Mill assumes the existence of external objects and the powers 
or properties by which those objects excite mental activity, but says, 

These latter (at least) being included rather in compliance with common 
opinion and because their existence is taken for granted in the common 
language from which I cannot prudently deviate, than because the recognition 
of such powers or properties as real existences appears to be warranted by 
a sound philosophy.^' 

What Mill is sure of are the facts of experience. Thought, then, 
in its widest sense, as ideational activity, would seem to be respon- 
sible for the whole data of knowledge. This would seem to compel 
the conclusion that thought is "instrumental" in determining 
knowledge ; not in an external way, as the means by which we arrive 
at truth that is true independent of thought, but by actually having 
a part in the development of reality itself. Mill, however, seems not 
to have drawn this conclusion, nor to have been conscious of the 
logical outcome of his position. 

This general point of view is worked out more fully by Wundt. 

^•^ System of Logic, p. 3. ^* Ibid., p, 48. 

^'' Ibid., p. 137. '^^ Ibid., p. 49. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY II 

He defines logic as the science which has to give an account of 
those laws of thought that are efficient in the investigation of 
truth.2" It occupies a position between psychology and the other 
theoretical sciences. Logic "leads back" on the one hand to a 
psychological examination of the actual course of thought, and 
"looks forward" on the other to "universal knowledge and the way 
of procedure of scientific thought." Its particular problem is to 
investigate and establish the actually operative laws of thought as 
these laws reveal themselves in the whole range of scientific 
investigation. 

This view of logic Wundt opposes, on the one hand, to formal 
logic, and, on the other, to what he calls metaphysical, or dialectic, 
logic. By the latter, he means that view of logic which makes 
thought an instrument {Werkzeug) "which gives to knowledge not 
merely its form but produces out of itself also the content of the 
same." ^^ 

Wundt objects to this "metaphysical logic," particularly because 
it sets up a system of thought that offers no aid to and has no 
connection with the scientific investigation of truth. Furthermore, 
he seems not to grant to thought any part in the creation oi reality, 
when he says: "Never can it (thought) gain any other significance 
than that of copying the objects by which thought is conscious of 
having met all demands which reality imposes on its copying 
activity." ^^ But a further examination of Wundt's philosophy leads 
to a different view of the function of thought. Wundt recognizes 
experience as the fundamental ground of all knowledge. Out of 
experience there develops both object and subject. Historically, 
this antithesis appears in the course of an individual's development; 
it is not there at the beginning. 

the expressions outer and inner experience do not indicate different 
objects, but different points of view from which we take up the consideration 
and scientific treatment of a unitary experience. We are naturally 
led to these points of view, because every concrete experience immedi- 
ately divides into tivo factors; into a content presented to us, and our appre- 
hension of this content.^ [And,] Even the use of the terins object and 

subject in this connection must be regarded as the application to the first stage 

'"Logik, Band I, s. i. 

^Ibid., s, 3. '^Ibid., s. 6. 

=^ Outlines of Psychology (Judd's trans). ), pp. 2, 3. 



12 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

of experience, of distinctions which are reached only through developed 
logical reflection."* 

If object and subject arise out of a ''unitary experience" and 
"through developed logical reflection," thought must have an 
important and fundamental part in determining our conceptions of 
reality. Thought, from this point of view, is responsible for my 
reality ; it comes to me through my thinking. To still contend that 
thought is a inere "copying activity" would seem to be a plain 
contradiction. 

In the subjective field Wundt seems to regard thought as really 
instrumental when he says. 

None of the mental sciences [philology, history, political science, etc.] 
employ the abstractions and hypothetical supplementary concepts of natural 
science; quite otherwise, they all accept ideas and the accompanying subjective 
activities as immediate reality.'^ 

In the domain of these mental activities Wundt recognizes, in 
the rise of "new attributes," the presence of a principle of "creative 
syntheses ;" the actual evolving of "qualities" and "values" that 
cannot be derived from the analysis of the component eleinents. 
He says, 

Not only do the elements united by apperceptive synthesis gain, in the 
aggregate idea which results from their combination, a new significance which 
they did not have in their isolated state, but, what is of still greater impor- 
tance, the aggregate idea itself is a new psychical content made possible, to 
be sure, by the elements but by no means contained in these elements."" 

This definite recognition of the creative power of mental activity, 
when taken in connection with the activity of thought which is 
admitted to lie back of and condition the rise of the concepts 
object and subject, would seem to commit Wundt to the theory 
that thought is fundamentally and , essentially instrumental in 
character. 

The theories here briefly outlined show how these writers have 
attempted to explain the concepts of both matter and thought so as 
to satisfy actual experience. In the movement variously styled radi- 
cal empiricism, pragmatism, or humanism (the fundamental thought 
is the same), we have the most recent contributions to this 
problem. From the standpoint of this "pragmatic" development 

^Outlines of Psychology (Judd's transl.), p. 5. 

'"^ Ibid., p. 3 (italics mine). ^ Ibid., p. 364. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 1 3 

the function of thought is essentially and immanently instrumental. 
As the theory of education outlined- in Part II is based on this 
general point of view, a brief exposition of this type of instru- 
mental logic follows. The purpose is, particularly, to set forth 
those characteristics that have a bearing on educational theory. 
A number of writers have contributed to the development of this 
logical theory, but it has been worked out most thoroughly by Dr. 
Dewey in his Studies in Logical Theory. To him more than any 
other writer is due the following interpretation. 

From this point of view of instrumental logic there arise in 
ordinary everyday experience disturbed situations which do not 
readily adjust themselves. This disturbance is due to the failure of 
habitual ways of reacting. Conditions arise which the old habits, 
the old attitudes, the old ideas, are unable to assimilate and harmo- 
nize. There is a state of tension. But this obstruction of activity 
must be overcome ; it is the essence of life to be active. There is an 
effort made to readjust the situation so that the broken co-ordina- 
tions may be brought into harmonious relation and normal activity 
resumed. The first effort usually fails. There may be a long 
period of wandering, of experimenting, of reflecting, before suc- 
cess is attained. During this period of tension, one is conscious, 
often intensely so, of the disturbed conditions. When a satisfactory 
readjustment is finally made, the whole affair tends to drop out of 
consciousness and attention is given to other problems. This whole 
situation— the break in habitual ways of reacting, the tentative 
movements toward readjustment, and the final successful co-ordina- 
tion — is the thought-situation. Dr. Dewey says: 

It is the whole dynamic experience with its qualitative and pervasive 
identity of value, and its inner distraction, its elements at odds with each 
other, in tension against each other, contending each for its proper placing 
and relationship, that generates the thought-situation." 

This whole readjustive movement in which antagonistic and 
unrelated factors are brought into harmony is the thought process 
itself. Thinking is just such readjusting. 

The field of thought is the field of human interests. Thought 
has to do with just these everyday experiences of life. We think 
about our physical needs, our social relations, our religious con- 
victions. One would build a house, obtain political preferment, 

" Studies in Logical Theory, p. 38. 



14 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

or perform a religious duty. And each of these may mean stren- 
uous effort, careful planning, periods of doubt and delay and oppo- 
sition; final success may follow only after long and strenuous 
activity. Thought is the instrument or tool by means of which suc- 
cess comes. Such experiences of everyday life are antecedent to 
thought in the sense that, taken at any point, thought has grown out 
of such commonplace affairs. So long as everything goes on 
smoothly, there is no thinking. It is when there is conflict, when 
one does not know just what to do, when there is doubt, hesitancy, 
perplexity, that thought gets in its work. To overcome a disturbed 
situation within these life interests is the immediate motive to 
thought activity. 

This thought activity involves consciousness. Habit, so far as it 
is automatic, takes care of itself, as it were. There is no need of 
consciously attending to its operations. But our entire conscious 
world, sensations, perceptions, conceptions, objects, images, ideas, 
that is, our entire physical world, in so far as that comes to con- 
sciousness, and our entire thought world — all have their existence 
in the thought-situation. All these things exist for me, if they 
exist for me at all, as conscious existences. When for any reason 
co-ordinations fail, the factors involved in the situation come to 
consciousness. It is difficult to see how there could be a sensation, 
a perception, or any object of thought, unless there were some need 
of attending to it. The presence of a sensation means the failure of 
given co-ordinations to meet conditions imposed upon them. The 
point of "fracture," the point needing attention, is the point that 
will come most clearly into consciousness ; it will be in the focus of 
attention. The other data will come to consciousness in so far as 
they are related to this disturbance, and especially, in so far as they 
may become means for the solution of the problem generated. 

It was stated above that the physical world and the thought 
world exist in the thought-situation. The truth is that our experi- 
ence, as it comes to consciousness in the thought-situation, polarizes 
into an ''external" physical world and a "subjective" thought world. 
Certain data are looked upon as peculiar to the thinker and as 
having no existence outside his thought. Other data are believed to 
exist independent of and apart from the thinker. Still other data 
are uncertain and doubtful. One has not yet determined whether to 
regard them as really true or as merely subjective. The possible 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 1 5 

shifting of this third class of data gives the cUie to the interpretation 
of all. A doubtful datum may come to be regarded, with further 
experience, as a positive fact and true for all thinkers. The law 
of gravitation and other physical laws are instances of such data 
that have come to be regarded as absolute fact. On the other hand, 
doubtful facts may move in the other direction and be looked upon 
finally as mere ideas. But this is not all. What has been regarded 
as absolute fact may become doubtful and finally relegated to the 
realm of ideas. Or, what was thought to be mere idea becomes 
doubtful fact and finally is accepted as absolute existence. The 
criterion for the acceptance or rejection of a given datum as law 
or fact is a practical one. A law is valid because it is found to be 
unfailing in its operation. A fact is true because we can always 
count upon it ; we have learned how to react toward it. So long as 
it meets the practical demands made upon it, it is a fixture. In so 
far as it fails, we modify our conception of it and it ceases to be 
for us just what it was. The whole meaning of "object" and "sub- 
ject," of "fact" and "idea," of "physical" and "mental," is deter- 
mined by the character of our experience ; and as this experience is 
being continually added to, as new content is being continually 
experienced, so the interpretation of any datum is liable to shift in 
the getting of a new point of view. 

It is believed that the above exposition, so far as it goes, is true 
to the general thought of the logical theory from the standpoint of 
which this paper is written. There are certain characteristics that 
ought to be discussed. First is the category of activity. 

Change, activity, development, are fundamental to this theory 
of logic. Activity appears as tendencies to action, a striving to pass 
beyond present conditions and limitations. The word "impulse" is 
sometimes used to express this fundamental tendency to movement. 
Everyone recognizes that the basic characteristic of reflex action, 
instinct, desires, motives, and the will is the impulse to act. But, 
because so often thought does not immediately terminate in overt 
activity, one tends to overlook the impulsive character of the idea. 
It is now commonly agreed among psychologists that the idea is in 
its very nature impulsive. It is a tool for the furtherance of con- 
duct. Professor James says, in discussing voluntary action : 

The first point to start from, in understanding voluntary action, is the 
fact that consciousness is in its very nature impulsive. We do not first 



l6 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

have a sensation or thought, and then have to add something dynamic to it 
to get a movement. Every pulse of feeling which we have is the correlate 
of some neural activity that is already on its way to instigate a movement. 
Our sensations and thoughts are but cross-sections, as it were, of currents 
whose essential consequence is motion.'^ 

It seems to be the very nature of the Ufe process to pass beyond 
its present state and become something different. Stout says : "This 
tendency [to pass beyond] is not only a fact, but an experience; 
and the pecuHar mode of being conscious, which constitutes the 
experience, is called conation." -^ This conative tendency, in its 
higher forms as realized in man, is the will. Indeed, the term "will" 
in its widest significance is sometimes used to cover this whole 
fundamental tendency to activity. 

Activity looks forward. It is responsible for the tension, the 
problem, which arises in the failure of habits to function. It begets 
a tentative movement which, persisting, finally readjusts the situa- 
tion. It is this tendency to movement that keeps life going; that 
prevents the organism from becoming fixed and static. Because 
of this activity there is growth. 

Another fundamental category of experience is habit. By habit 
is meant the tendency of experience to repeat itself. The living 
organism tends to do the sort of thing it has done before. It 
is but a bundle of habits. It is what it is because of past experience. 
Reflexes, instincts, attitudes — all tendencies to activity in any spe- 
cific way, whether well defined or not, are due to habit. 

Habit thus constitutes the entire background of experience; the 
experience possible at any given time depends upon how far previ- 
ous experience has become organized and preserved in some form of 
habit. Perceptions, conceptions, images, ideas, represent experience 
become habitual. Habit determines not only what we shall be cogni- 
zant of but it also determines how we shall deal with any given bit of 
experience. The only way we can deal with present experience is 
the way past experience has taught us ; our habits are the tools, 
and the only tools, with which we have to work. Consequently, we 
always approach a problem predisposed toward certain ways of 
handling it. We would be absolutely fair and impartial, but the 

'^Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 426, 
^ Manual of Psychology, p. 63. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 1 7 

extent of our impartiality is limited by the narrowness of our 
experience. 

The function of habit is to preserve the valuable experiences of 
the race and the individual. Those forms of activity which are 
repeated again and again tend to become fixed and correlated; the 
life process taken at any point exhibits a vast system of co-ordi- 
nations more or less stable in their reactions. These habits are the 
basis of activity. They are the material upon which and with which 
life builds. As a co-ordination becomes habitual it tends to drop 
out of consciousness, and permits attention to be directed to other 
problems. Habit relieves thought, economizes energy, reduces 
fatigue, and gives skill and rapidity to all forms of reaction. 

The habits at any period will suffice for that period in so far as 
old conditions persist. But new situations arise ; situations in which 
old habits and co-ordinations fail to meet the demand. There 
follows a more or less complete breakdown. This breakdown occurs 
in all forms of human activity, in the practical as well as in the 
theoretical. It exhibits the failure of present points of view, theo- 
ries, associations, customs, or co-ordinations — that is, habits by 
whatever name they are called — to meet the needs of the moment. 

The question naturally arises as to why it is that in time the 
organism does not become static through the complete accommoda- 
tion of life to its conditions. On this point Professor Moore sa3^s: 

It would seem, then, that habit must be regarded as somehow developing 
its own interruptions. And, after all, this would not seem to be such a 
difficult conception. It is scarcely more than the commonplace notion, the 
philosophical significance of which Hegel perhaps first pointed out, that 
activity is conceived as constantly producing new conditions of its further 
on-going; that in activity there must be a constant reorganization of the 
results of the activity back into the process.^" 

Bearing on the same point Professor Baldwin says: 
An organism accommodates itself, or learns new adjustments, simply by 
exercising the movements which it already has, its habits, in a heightened or 
excessive way ; the accommodation is in each case simply the result and fruit 
of the habit itself which is exercised [Also,] Each such accommoda- 
tion is reached simply in the ordinary routine of habit, and is its outcome.'^ 

^"Existence, Meaning, and Reality, "Decennial Publications," The Uni- 
versity of Chicago, Vol. Ill, p, 42; p. 16 of reprint. 

"'^Mental Development: Methods and Processes, pp. 217, 218 (italics 
mine). 



1 8 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

From the point of view of both these writers, then, it is the very 
nature of the life process to beget its own interruptions. Experi- 
ence, new experience, is the normal condition. 

But as life does not become static, as habits continually suffer 
more or less extensive breakdowns, so it is the nature of life to 
readjust itself to meet new conditions. There is continual oscilla- 
tion : a period of comparatively uninterrupted activity followed by 
a more or less serious disturbance ; this is readjusted and a compara- 
tively quiescent period follows. In the breakdown, there is a tend- 
ency for the old habits to assimilate the new conditions ; that is, the 
old ways of acting would persist. If this is impossible, a recon- 
structive movement follows, the old habits being both the material 
readjusted and the tools of readjustment. The final successful 
co-ordination is sometimes spoken of as a compromise between 
these old habits. A better statement is that a new co-ordination is 
formed that includes within itself the conflicting factors. The old 
habits have not been eliminated but they have been "trimmed 
down" so as to fit into the larger co-ordinations. The statement is 
sometimes made, and truly, that life grows from the simple to the 
complex. There is just this sort of growing complexity going on 
continually. 

Habit, then, has a twofold nature ; habits are formed and habits 
are broken. And the breaking of habits would seem to be just as 
much a "habit" of life as the forming of habits. The formation of 
habits means preservation of that which is valuable; their break- 
down and subsequent reorganization means growth, development, 
expansion. 

This whole reconstructive movement which takes place on the 
breakdown of habit and which reorganizes the disconnected fac- 
tors into a larger, more comprehensive co-ordination is the thinking 
activity. Habit and thought represent the two poles of the life process. 
Thought means growth ; habit, preservation. Professor Moore says : 
.... activity in any final sense must include both a mechanical and a 
reconstructing function. As habit constitutes the mechanical, the conserving, 
materializing function, so the idea is the radical reconstructing function in 
activity. Habit and thought are thus constituent poles of experience. As 
such, neither can be defined apart from the other. Each limits the other in 
every particular case, but neither can be regarded as "the ultimate" out of 
which the other is absolutely evolved."" 

^Existence, Meaning, and Reality^ pp. i6, 17 (reprint). 



i 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 1 9 

Habit and thought, then, are absolutely correlative. There 
could be no thinking without habit; the formation of habit requires 
thought; it would seem that the two have evolved together. 

In the discussion so far no distinction has been made between 
reflective and unreflective thought. In reflective thought the 
object of our thinking is our own past experience. It is when one 
consciously goes over his experience and readjusts, or attempts to 
readjust, a disturbed situation that thought is called reflective. Un- 
reflective thought precedes and accompanies reflective thought ; 
accompanies it, that is, in the sense that the thought of the adult is 
in part unreflective, Sigwart says : 

As soon as the individual begins to reflect upon his inner activity he 
finds that he is already engaged in various kinds of Thought; he can have no 
immediate knowledge of its beginning nor of its development out of simpler 
and more primitive activities. Only by means of a difficult psychological 
analysis of Thought, as we find it at work, can we discover its particular 
factors and the faculties which give rise to it, and thus form some idea of 
the laws of its unconscious growth.^' 

The child comes into the world endowed with certain well- 
developed modes of reaction ; such are the reflexes and instincts. 
Some of these are so perfectly adjusted to his surroundings that there 
seems to be no need for thought. The activity is unconscious. But 
in his early years the child meets innumerable difficulties; there is 
abundant occasion for thought; there is thought. But the child is 
engaged in what he is doing. His experience has not yet polarized 
into "knower" and objects "known." It is only with years that he 
comes consciously to turn back and "reflect" upon his past experi- 
ence. This "imreflective" thought is the thought of infancy and 
early childhood, but it is not confined to this. The thought of the 
savage, the half-civilized man, and the mass of civilized peoples is 
largely of the unreflective type. Indeed, much of the thought of every 
man cannot be called "reflective." He is intent on the end to be 
reached ; so long as the activity absorbs him and, especially, so long 
as he meets no serious difficulty in adjusting means to ends, his 
thought does not come under the reflective type. While reflective 
thought is the great tool of growth, unreflective thought controls 
the minor readjustments. Here habit is powerful; but not all pow- 
erful, for there is some thought; there is more or less readjustment, 

^^ Logic, Vol. I, p. 2, 



20 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

but it does not rise to the level of reflective thinking. There are, 
then, three stages, or phases, into which activity might be divided : 
that of purely habitual action, that of unreflective thought, and that 
of reflective thought. 

But the great instnunent of human development is reflective 
thought. The particular form of thought's operation is called 
judgment. In reflective thought the judgment becomes explicit. 
In each judgment some discordant factor of our experience is taken 
up and readjusted by identifying it with, or relating it to, some 
other factor, or the whole, with the result that harmony is re-estab- 
lished. That to which readjustment is made is the subject of the 
judgment; that which is identified with, or related to, the subject 
and which serves to "explain" it is the predicate. 

The predicate of the judgment, then, is the co-ordination which 
explains, or harmonizes, the situation. Many possible predicates 
may be suggested and tested before the right one appears. A pro- 
posed solution of a problem is called a hypothesis, and the char- 
acteristic tentative movement in reconstruction is just the testing of 
this hypothesis. This view of the thought process and the con- 
sequent importance given to hypotheses are at variance with the 
ordinary conception of reality, judgment, and hypothesis. The 
ordinary view regards reality as existing distinct and independent of 
the knowing individual ; and a fundamental problem which tradi- 
tional logic must solve is: How is reality known? This theory of 
logic takes no account of such an external, independent reality. 
Reality exists within experience, and this is the reality with which 
thought operates. Such categorical judgments, then, as "This is 
my home," given by Bosanquet, where "this" is held to indicate con- 
tact with an external reality, have no place in this theory. Indeed, 
fundamentally, every judgment is hypothetical. For, "The judg- 
ment is to be regarded as essentially a process of reconstruction 
which aims at the resumption of an interrupted experience." ^* The 
judgment is said to be finished, complete, when the "reconstruc- 
tion" is satisfactory and the "interrupted experience" is resumed. 
The test is, "Does it work?" But there is always the possibility 
that further experience may necessitate the modification of any 
judgment. This process of reconstruction, of modifying former 
judgments, is essential to this theory. It recognizes the fact that 

^* Ashley, Studies in Logical Theory, p. 156. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 21 

all interpretations of experience are hypothetical ; that nothing is 
eternally fixed and unalterable ; that, however complete and satis- 
factory is found a given explanation, it may prove inadequate to 
explain future experience and a revision become necessary. 

From the logical principles here presented it follows that thought 
is through and through hypothetical, and that the predicate of the 
judgment is explicitly hypothetical. The term hypothesis is, how- 
ever, ordinarily applied to a predicate which has been formulated, 
tested, and tentatively accepted as an explanation of certain phe- 
nomena. A successful hypothesis comes to be regarded as a 
principle, law, or theory that is generally, or even universally, valid. 
Logicians have explained at length how these general hypotheses are 
formulated and how applied, in which discussions induction and 
deduction have received especial attention. It is believed that an 
exposition, from the standpoint of instrumental logic, of the formu- 
lation and testing of general hypotheses, and how induction and 
deduction are involved in this operation, will throw light on the 
whole situation. 

Whenever a difficulty arises in experience, the situation will call 
up, naturally, a previous similar experience, if there has been such; 
and the predicate found successful in the previous situation will, 
unless there are obvious hindrances, be selected and tested to deter- 
mine the possibility of its solving the present problem. If this predi- 
cate, either with or without much modification, proves successful, 
then, in a third similar situation, the mind will all the more readily 
turn to this predicate for a solution of the difficulty. A predicate 
successful in a certain class of phenomena comes to be regarded 
as a general law ; if the class to which it is applied is regarded as 
complete, or if the relation between the individual of the class and 
the predicate be such that it (the predicate) is believed to hold good 
of each one of the class, we get the so-called "universal." In other 
words, a principle, a law, that is, a hypothesis by whatever name 
called, is a co-ordination, a habit, that has been found successful in 
dealing with certain phenomena. The development of a "law" is a 
process of evolution and, theoretically at least, the law is not fully 
determined until all the individuals to which it is applicable are in 
and checked up. The law taken at any point in the process is dif- 
ferent from both the first and the last predicate ; not wholly differ- 
ent but not identical throughout. 



22 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

Looking at this process from the side of its evolution, the "inter- 
preting" of successive data, we get wduction; the law is built up, 
established, by such interpretations. In the naive mind, these laws 
"grow up" unconsciously. The reflective man may observe that the 
same predicate has been used in a number of judgments and thus 
come to recognize the operation of a law. The scientist sets out 
deliberately to observe phenomena, in order that, after observing a 
series of facts, he may "inductively" establish a "law." 

Looking at the process from the side of the use of previous 
experience to interpret new data, we get deduction. Professor 
Angell says: 

These reactions (deductions) consist in applying to appropriate things 
the habitual accompaniments of specific objects, or events, in the form of 
general ideas, or principles, concerning similar objects and events.'' 

Thus induction and deduction are present throughout. In using 
the predicate of the first experience, A, to interpret the second 
experience,, B, we begin a process of induction which may result in 
the establishment of a "law;" and this use of a previous predicate 
to interpret a new experience is the essence of deduction. 

To summarize: The general point of view from which instru- 
mental logic is developed has been termed "radical empiricism." It 
is based on experience as such. It takes the world of experience 
just as it stands as the world of reality, and would explain all 
categories of thought in terms of this experience. It is distinctly 
evolutionary. If there is one category more fundamental than 
another, it is that of activity. This activity is exhibited in the form 
of habit. But habit or activity or the union of the two somehow 
begets interruptions ; the habit breaks down in the process of its 
own on-going. Habit, expressing as it does the experience of the 
race and the individual, furnishes the only tools available for the 
reconstruction of the interrupted activity. At this point conscious- 
ness appears and in some way is effective in controlling the situa- 
tion. The process of reconstruction by which old co-ordinations 
are made over and organized into a harmonized, larger co-ordi- 
nation is called thought. Thought is just this reconstruction. With- 
in this disturbed situation and having its whole meaning there, is 
ever conceivable form of which thought can become cognizant. 
That is, one's field of knowledge, the whole range of his conscious 

^'^ Psychology, p. 240. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 23 

universe, arises within and gets its meaning from the thought- 
situation. ReaHty is not something thought would represent ; there 
is reaHty in experience and it may be projected as an "external" 
physical world or conceived of as an "internal" thought world. It 
is real if it is experienced and one "world" is just as real as the 
other. 

The criterion of truth is, "Does it work?" This means pos- 
sibility of change in accepted "truths" as one gets more experience ; 
consequently, the through-and-through hypothetical nature of all 
knowledge. This is the point of view of the scientist. He gets his 
data, his experience. He formulates hypotheses to interpret them; 
or, perhaps better said, he endeavors to state the mode or forms of 
their appearing and their operation, li his hypothesis works, and 
so long as it works, he accepts it. The whole scientific view of the 
universe is just such hypothetical construction. The "real world" 
of the naive man, in so far as thought out at all and not simply 
accepted, is also just such hypothetical construction, the difference 
being that the scientist works consciously and the naive man uncon- 
sciously, n the criterion of truth is, "Does it work?" we get the 
basis of all accepted truth in habit. So long as one can react to a 
situation in a certain way so long is one's interpretation of it true. 



II 

EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

The preceding discussion of logical theory makes clear certain 
principles that, if accepted, must determine the theory of education. 
The educational theory outlined in the following pages is an attempt 
to apply these principles to education. The more important of 
these principles are : 

1. All development of experience takes place in a disturbed 
situation brought about by the failure to function of habitual ways 
of reacting. Thought is the reconstructive movement through 
which this disturbed situation is readjusted. 

2. Experience is essentially activity, or will in the widest sense 
of that term. All growth and development are through activity. 
The final end of all activity is practical conduct. 

3. Habit as the form in which valuable experiences are retained 
constitutes the material with which thought operates. The disin- 



24 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

tegration and redintegration of habit is the fundamental movement 
in development. 

4. The failure of habits and the tension resulting therefrom 
give rise to the thought-situation. Within this thought-situation 
are realized all the manifold forms of intellectual life. 

5. The reconstruction of the thought-situation is hypothetical. 
The test of its truth is practical: "Does it work?" Further experi- 
ence may modify any conclusion. All development involves a con- 
tinued reconstruction of experience. 

These principles point out the way experience goes on. One's 
education is, at any given moment, the sum total of these accu- 
mulating experiences. The process of education is the process of 
experiencing. The results may be judged good or bad. The attain- 
ment of certain desirable ends is possible only by discovering the 
nature of this process of experience and by shaping its course of 
development. The particular problem of this paper is to point out 
this logical basis of all education. It was shown in Part I that the 
term "thought" is used to cover the whole reconstructive process. 
Thought is the instrument, or tool, through which experience recon- 
structs itself. But this process of reconstruction is just the process 
of education ; the thought process is the educative process. Edu- 
cation might be defined as applied logic. 

The remaining portion of this paper points out in some detail 
how these logical principles detennine, fundamentally, the character 
of all education. How the fundamental forms of thought activity 
constitute education will be considered first; then certain generally 
recognized educative processes will be taken up and their place in 
the logical process indicated. The primary purpose of this paper 
is not to outline the method of education, except in so far as the 
establishment of the logical processes involved in all education 
must in a general way determine and point out such method. It 
seems advisable, however, to indicate briefly certain methods of 
procedure which are essential to education, but this is secondary to 
the main purpose. 

Education is coexistent and coextensive with experience. It is 
going on throughout the entire lifetime of the individual. The term 
education is often limited, however, to childhood and youth, and 
particularly to the period of school age. The extremely plastic 
and comparatively unorganized condition of early life makes it the 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 2$ 

great educative period. The child is making- rapid strides in devel- 
opment; the school is the specific institution that society has set 
apart to aid the child in this development. For these reasons fre- 
quent reference will be made to the child and to the school. 

Because of the immediate dependence of instrumental logic on 
psychology a portion of the discussion of educational theory is taken 
up with psychological analyses. This seems necessary to an ade- 
quate appreciation of the situation. In a general way, the principles 
will be discussed in the order given. 

I. THE NATURE OF EDUCATION 

In the discussion of logical theory, emphasis was laid upon the 
breakdown of habit which experience suffers. This gives rise to a 
disturbed situation, a state of tension, a problem. The very essence 
of experience being activity, there could be no rest here ; so there 
follow tentative movements the end of which is to make some satis- 
factory readjustment. The problem is finally solved, the readjust- 
ment accomplished, and attention is turned to other problems. 

This breakdown of habitual ways of reacting, the problem which 
it generates, and the final successful solution are essential to educa- 
tion. The old habits fail, and just at the point of failure is where 
education, which is just the process of readjusting, takes place. 
Attention was called to the fundamental nature of habit; how our 
ideas, points of view, facts, perceptions, concepts, in fact our whole 
intellectual content, are grounded in habit. They are forms of 
habitual reactions which come to consciousness as intellectual con- 
tent in this breakdown of habit, and they constitute the intellectual 
capital that an individual has at any given time upon which he 
may draw in the solution of a problem. For education to take 
place, there must be this problem; there must be this intellectual 
content; and there must be at least a tentative solution. If success 
follows, the "point of view" is accepted; better, the acceptance of 
the point of view is the "success." This accepted solution is always 
tested ; first, the fact that it solves the problem at hand is a test of 
its validity; second, its use as occasion may demand in subsequent 
experience furnishes additional testing. It is only the scientist 
who produces artificial conditions for testing his hypotheses.. The 
child or the naive man tests them as he needs them. This testing 
further readjusts and confirms tentative solutions. It gives validity 



26 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

and solidarity to experience. This is an important part of 
education. 

Education is "a reconstruction of experience," but it is not a 
mere working-over of past experiences. The very reconstruction of 
old experience constitutes a new experience. Further : in dis- 
cussing the breakdown of habit, attention was called to the fact 
that experience begets interruptions ; that change is involved in 
the very conception of life. These interruptions, these changes, 
are new experience. They constitute the new conditions which 
must be met and assimilated. Education is, then, an enlarging, an 
addition to, as well as a reconstruction of, old experience. It is 
development, growth, expansion. Logically, education might be 
defined as the process of growth and organization of experience 
through the reconstruction of old experience in order to harmonize 
it with, or "explain," the new. 

This view of education is not the one generally accepted. The 
more common view looks upon education as a preparation for the 
future. The end lies outside the present moment. Various sorts 
of external results have been set up as the goal. It is the acquiring 
of learning, or information; the development of moral character; 
"a harmonious development of all the powers;" or simply a 
preparation for life. The theory of education derived from the 
principles of instrumental logic puts the goal within the educa- 
tive process. Education is not something to be obtained through a 
long course of training or instruction ; it is the process of growth 
which is now in progress. It is an internal evolution, not an exter- 
nal addition of information, knowledge, or mere accumulations of 
any sort. Education is the entire process of growth. 

II. THE MOTOR ELEMENT IN EDUCATION 

An appreciation of the logic of the educative process enables 
one to recognize the importance of the motor element in educa- 
tion. All growth and development are essentially activity. Activity 
manifests itself as tendencies to various kinds of movements, as a 
striving after objects, as definite forms of reaction. We have 
instincts, reflexes, desires, ideas, and will ; these are some of the 
forms in which activity appears. The word "impulse" is here used 
to cover all these tendencies to activity, however vague and indefi- 
nite or clear and defined. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 27 

This growing activity is going on in this real world of physical 
and social and intellectual and moral interests. We are interested 
in our physical needs — food, clothing, shelter; in our world of 
loves, hopes, fears, and ambitions. It is because we are doing 
things and attempting to do things that intellectual growth, or 
growth of any kind, takes place. Because of conflicting impulses, 
problems arise in this activity. A man cannot build a beautiful 
home and at the same time use the money for travel. And so his 
desires come into conflict ; both cannot be realized as they appear to 
him here and now. One must be abandoned if the other is to be 
secured, or some sort of a new arrangement must be devised if both 
are to be enjoyed. 

These problems are not sentimental or fanciful or unessential. 
They must be solved if life is to be realized. They are just the 
things that are "worth while" and for which humanity strives. 
They make life real and vital. Furthermore, it is the solving of 
these practical, living problems that gives that satisfaction which 
experience demands as its adequate realization. 

It is in solving just such real problems as these that education 
takes place. To speak particularly of early education: problems 
may be "set" for the child ; his teacher may regard these set prob- 
lems as essential to his right development; but only in so far as 
they are problems to the child himself does their solution give intel- 
lectual growth. The child is active. He does have problems, and 
the solution of these problems, his own, are the only ones on which 
his education depends. The question is not of "giving" the child 
problems, but of deciding which of his own problems shall receive 
attention. At any point in his experience the child has more prob- 
lems, consciously or subconsciously present to him, than he can solve. 
The teacher ought to be familiar enough with child development to 
have some idea of the nature of these problems and of their mean- 
ing in terms of the social conditions which begot them, and of what 
vatue their solution would be to the child. It is the business of the 
teacher to emphasize and cause the child to react to those prob- 
lems which have the greatest significance for him as a social being 
living in a given social environment. 

The impulse to activity furnishes the starting-point for all edu- 
cation. Dr. Dewey says: "In man, there are few instincts pure 
and simple, but rather the loose beginnings and ends of very many 



28 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

instincts. Hence, the range and variety of human, as compared 
with animal reactions." ^"^ These instincts are the "leavings" of our 
ancestry; that which was beneficial to them and which has been 
bequeathed to us. These inherited impulses and instincts are the 
only capital on which the child has to begin. He who would direct 
the child's development must place himself, as it were, within the 
range of these impulses and content himself with emphasizing the 
more important ones. Only in this way is it possible to direct the 
child into the more desirable forms of activity. 

The impulses reveal fundamental forms of social activity, which 
are functioning in the civilization of today. The meaning of these 
impulses is to be found then in this civilization. Consequently, 
civilization must furnish the criterion for him who would direct 
the child's education. The language impulse shows itself in the 
babbling of the infant. To the child it means nothing. It is simply 
the outgoing of his activity along lines predetermined by inherit- 
ance. But to the adult it is the beginning of the chief means of 
communication with one's fellows. Out of this communicative 
impulse there develop talking, reading, writing, and the higher 
aesthetic appreciation of literature. It is the beginning of the 
child's intellectual social life. The mother and companions respond 
to the infant's babbling, and so it comes to have meaning for it. 
So it is with other impulses exhibited by the child. He who sees 
the end from the beginning has a criterion by which to judge the 
relative value and importance of these impulsive beginnings. 

Activity involves change of some "physical" form. It is com- 
monly held by psychologists that "thought" is accompanied by 
cerebral changes, if by no other. Conduct, for which thought 
exists, always involves some physical change. It is in, or by means 
of, some physical change that our ideals are realized. These ideals 
may be the attainment of personal pleasure, a business transaction 
with our fellow-men, or the performance of a religious duty. Our 
ideal may be expressed in language, by bodily activity, or by means 
of some "external" physical object. This fact has an important 
bearing on education. The child grows intellectually by working 
out his ideals in just such external ways. His thought should 
serve some end which may be externally realized. Here is the 
logical basis for handwork as a means of education. When the 
child can work out a problem in a given concrete form through the 

^°Tbe Study of Ethics, p. 13. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 29 

medium of clay, wood, or graphically, it becomes "real" to him as 
mere thoughts do not. It is objective, it can be criticized, and, 
usually, it can be modified so as to approach more nearly the ideal 
embodied in it. 

Much of the work of the schoolroom lacks this objective reali- 
zation. The solutions of the problems, in so far as there are 
problems, are merely intellectual. As a rule, there is little oppor- 
tunity to work out results in a concrete way. Thought fails to 
function and so we get sentimentalism and lack of interest. To 
make matters worse, the so-called problems are the problems of 
the teacher, not of the child. His intellectual activities are directed 
along lines which others have considered valuable and which have 
no vital interest for him. Take, for instance, the usual method of 
teaching arithmetic. The child is expected to learn the processes 
and principles in logical order, as systematically arranged by 
mature minds. But data are organized only after getting them. 
The human mind does not learn in the "logical" order naturally ; 
the genetic order is not the logical order. Furthermore, the child 
sees no need of these data. They have not grown out of, and have 
no apparent connection with, his own interests. The problems, if 
problems are present at all, do not connect up with the real life of 
the child. There is a dualism ; the child leads two lives, one a 
life outside the school, full of interest, with real problems ; the 
other a life of the schoolroom dealing with material which, though 
it may have some interest, yet is not vitally related to the child's 
"real" life. So his knowledge is largely of the character of infor- 
mation. It is not usable and it is not "real," because it does not 
arise out of genuine problems. Furthermore, there is no oppor- 
tunity to test and check up in a practical way the solution of the 
problems that may have some interest for him. 

The fundamentally active character of all education seems now 
clear. Experience is a process, an activity. Thought is the process 
of reconstruction of experience, an activity. This process of recon- 
struction is education. Furthermore, education is not mere activity, 
but it is activity that would realize itself in some definite, concrete 
way. The end of education is practical conduct. 

III. HABIT AND EDUCATION 

The function of habit in the thought process has been discussed 
at length. It was shown th^t habit is the tendency of experience 



30 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

to repeat itself; that the habits of any individual are the accumu- 
lated, valuable ways of reacting which the race has preserved and 
bequeathed to him, and those acquired during his own lifetime. 
These habits manifest themselves in impulses, instincts, reflexes, 
points of view, customs, and in every form of activity that tends in 
one direction rather than in another. It was shown that there exist 
not only these habits commonly recognized as such, but that 
thought, also, depends upon habitual co-ordinations. Our habits 
determine what we shall be cognizant of and also how we shall 
deal with our thought content. Habit is the great conserving 
principle. It is the working capital, the accumulated earnings, with 
which experience operates. 

It was shown that habit breaks down ; that in the very nature of 
the on-going activity which manifests itself in habit interruptions 
occur. There is a state of tension ; a problem arises ; the contents 
of our thought are in conflict, at war with each other, necessitating 
a readjustment which means the formation of a new habit that 
will harmonize the divergent factors and restore a unified activity. 
This breakdown and reconstruction of habit is the normal condition. 

Habit is a primary factor in education. Reconstruction of 
experience is the reconstruction of habit. Experience is practical ; it 
is "doing things." The way things are done, the way of acting, is 
determined by habit. In a sense, the goal of education is the forma- 
tion of good habits. The great difference between the infant and 
the adult is that the adult has learned to react to the conditions of 
life in ways that give him power to control activity. By experience 
he has accumulated a vast number of habitual co-ordinations which 
do, in a measure, meet the demands. Thus he is free to take up 
new problems which, were it not for this past experience retained 
in the form of habit, he would not only be absolutely unable to 
control but would even be unconscious of their existence. 

It was said that habits are the tools by which problems are 
solved. It follows that the more perfect the tool, the more com- 
pletely a given form of reaction is under the control, the more 
efficient it will be. The value of so-called intellectual education 
has its value in the habits which it establishes. To illustrate : In 
nature-study, for example, the child gets certain facts of plant 
life which, if he is properly taught, enable him to understand 
certain phases of his experience that had been a problem to him. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 3 1 

The interpreting of these "facts" was in terms of previous experi- 
ence. That was the only thing he had to interpret them with. Now 
that the facts are interpreted, they are a part of his organized 
experience, his habits ; they not only control his actions at the time 
of such interpretation but they determine future conduct. It may 
be possible, but not probable, that a fact which the individual needs 
at one time will be so out of relation to all future experience that 
the particular form of reaction to that fact will never be repeated. 
If education were a preparation for the future, and if the prob- 
lems had no vital relation to present living, it is conceivable that, 
under such conditions, the solution of a merely intellectual problem 
might have little relation, if any, to the experiences of real life. 
There is an intellectual field of thought which does not have 
immediate relation to practical life; a field of thought which is 
pursued because of the intellectual appreciation and satisfaction 
which it gives. But it is not admitted that such thought is free 
from the law of habit or unrelated to practical conduct. In the 
first place, it has been shown that our entire intellectual content 
may be expressed in terms of habit; that it is grounded in habit. 
In the second place, it is questioned whether anyone is really inter- 
ested in so-called abstract truth per se. It is because the scientist 
or philosopher is able widely to separate the means from the end 
and yet see the relation of each part to the whole that he becomes 
interested in abstract fields of thought. It is because of his faith 
that his "truth" is true and hence does have some bearing upon 
life at large that he is interested in it. And if "at large," i. e., if at 
all, it must be in the conduct of some individual, or individuals, 
and hence is practical. 

There is, in the process of education, a continual passing over 
of broken co-ordinations into more comprehensive readjustments. 
But the "passing over" is not made at one jump. It can reason- 
ably be questioned whether any co-ordination ever becomes per- 
fectly adjusted to the conditions of experiencing. Not only does 
it do its first work imperfectly but a practically perfect adjustment 
is attained only after many repetitions. There is a gradual approach 
to efficiency. On the other hand, an absolutely unchanging habit 
implies unchanging conditions in experience ; but this is impossible. 
No experience is ever absolutely duplicated. This necessitates con- 
tinual change in habit. 



32 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

Under logical theory were discussed the conditions that lead to 
the interruption of habit. It was shown that the occasion of the 
failure of habit is the arising of a situation in which the habitual 
modes of reaction are in conflict ; they fail to function. The presence 
of sensation indicates the point of break ; perceptions, concep- 
tions, images, ideas, appear because they are related to the disturb- 
ance. Often, it is a percept which refuses to be accounted for 
satisfactorily. To the botanist, it is a new and strange plant which 
he cannot classify. Each such difficulty arises either within the 
circle of our ordinary reactions which these reactions cannot 
assimilate and which necessitate a going outside or beyond them to 
get its "explanation ;" or it arises outside of and gets its explana- 
tion within, or through, these ordinary reactions. One enlarges 
experience by taking it beyond the accustomed circle ; the other 
enriches experience by being brought into the usual modes of 
reaction; both enrich life by the added experience got through the 
reconstruction of old experience. 

Here we get a clue to the demand of life for ever-widening 
experience. It is necessary in order that the present life be under- 
stood and controlled. We get increased power by getting outside 
of and beyond the present. The richness and fulness of intellectual 
life is in exact ratio to the actual readjustments effected. An ever- 
widening experience is absolutely essential to the interpretation of 
the life process. But this demand for the "new" must grow out 
of problems arising in the old. New experience merely as new 
is worthless ; only as the new is reached out for and appropriated 
because it enables one to solve problems, accomplish purposes, has 
it any educational value. The value of new experience will depend 
upon this relation to the old. A historical fact as a mere datum of 
information has no educative value. Unless the fact comes in 
response to a real demand on the part of the experiencing indi- 
vidual and contributes to a fuller interpretation of the conditions 
which begot that demand ; or, at least, unless when the attention is 
directed to the fact it enlarges one's point of view, gives one a 
better understanding of life, it is, and remains, a mere bit of 
isolated experience; it does not enter into one's organized life, the 
real self, and, consequently, has no part in determining future 
experience. 

This interpretation of new experience, which is so essential. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 33 

gives the ground for repetition. Reference was made to the fact ' 
that no habit is perfect in its inception, necessitating a continual 
perfecting of the co-ordination. This perfecting is largely a pro- 
cess of elimination. The child in learning to walk makes a great 
many movements that are unnecessary. The growth in his habit 
is largely the eliminating of these unnecessary movements. Only 
gradually does a habit become adapted to the demands made upon 
it. It was also stated that no experience ever repeats itself, and that 
this necessitates a continual modification of habit. The repetition 
of habit, then, narrows the co-ordination by this elimination and at 
the same time widens it, making it serviceable to a continually 
enlarging range of experience. The real demand for repetition is 
in this demand for previous experience to interpret new experience. 
It is questioned whether repetition that has no vital relation to the 
reconstruction of genuine experience and for the interpretation of 
that experience, but is repeated on request for the sake of its sup- 
posed value, has any place in education at all. The opportunity for 
a rich and wide experience gives a genuine demand for the repeti- 
tion of previous experience in the normal, natural way. True, a 
child learning to talk will get a new word and repeat it over and 
over again and delight in the repetition. But the demand for the 
word in the first place lay outside the mere act itself; the use of 
the word, beyond mere babbling, was for some purpose. The repe- 
tition gives the child better control over the new co-ordination ; as 
soon as the word is really learned, for the child, the apparent mere 
repetition ceases. The practice of so much bare repetition in our 
schools has come about through a misconception of the purpose of 
education. The teacher desires to impart certain "knowledge" 
which she considers valuable because it will be needed at some 
future time. This knowledge is not the result of the living experi- 
ence of the child and there is no demand for its continued use, and 
hence its repetition, in the child's normal experience; so educa- 
tors have considered it necessary to devise certain artificial means 
for securing its repetition. The positively illogical ground for the 
practice is evident. The logical demand for repetition is in the use 
of co-ordinations formed in previous experience for the purpose 
of readjusting a new, and hence problematic, situation. 

If a process is so taught, when it is needed, that the child 
really becomes master of the new co-ordination, the teacher may 



34 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

safely allow the matter to rest there until the process is again 
demanded. What the child needs is not rare and unusual items of 
information but a knowledge of how successfully to meet the ordi- 
nary and constant demands upon him. The co-ordinations formed 
for this purpose will be required again and again and so be 
continually repeated. 

To insure a full and rich development, there must be oppor- 
tunity for free activity in which the child will get new experience. 
Power comes with the use of past experience in interpreting these 
new conditions. This application of previous experience means 
a continual reorganization of habits that increases their efficiency. 
The notion that a mass of habits may, or should be, acquired which, 
when once attained, are adequate for all time, is a common error 
and very largely responsible for the lack of growth and spontaneity 
so essential to all development. The belief that truth is absolute 
and unchangeable, regardless of what future experience may bring, 
is the greatest bar to progress. It is the very nature of one's 
experience to undergo more or less disintegration. But in 
the redintegration which the disintegration begets, experience 
more than repays itself for the apparent loss. It is because new 
experience proves the old inadequate that reorganization comes. 
This view of continual change does not mean skepticism. It is a 
growth, a development. The old is not cast aside, but is reorgan- 
ized, readjusted, and taken up into larger co-ordinations. The 
future is built up out of the past. This whole process — the forma- 
tion and reorganization of habits in order to readjust a disturbed 
situation in which situation new experience appears — is education. 

IV. THE WORK OF THOUGHT IN EDUCATION 

This reconstructing of experience, of habit, is thinking. Activity 
might be termed the matrix out of which habit and thought 
evolve. Habit conserves valuable experiences. Thought recon- 
structs disorganized habits, and it is in this process that the various 
forms of intellectual life appear. 

A consideration of a few of the fundamental characteristics of 
thought's operation will make clear the conditions under which 
education takes place. There will be considered: (i) Conscious- 
ness, including the subconscious and the unconscious; (2) Sugges- 
tion and Imitation; (3) Attention and Interest; and (4) 
Judgment. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 35 

I. Consciousness. — Thought takes cognizance of its own con- 
tents and operations. It becomes "aware" of itself. This "aware- 
ness" is what is meant by the word "consciousness." Consciousness 
operates in the control of experience, in the readjusting of a dis- 
turbed situation. Mr. Irving King says : "The degree of organi- 
zation present in consciousness bears a direct ratio to the degree 
in which new and complex adjustments have been formed in the 
lifetime of an individual."" Consciousness is concerned in the 
creating of one's entire universe, both the "internal" and the "exter- 
nal" world. It is said to have its origin in the disturbed situation, 
but as there seems to have been "disturbance" from the beginning 
of life it would appear that thought has always been conscious of 
its operations. 

Consciousness is used as a general term to cover all 
"awareness," but all degrees of consciousness are not the same. 
In any given state of consciousness, there is a certain object, or 
objects, that commands attention. This point stands out more 
clearly in consciousness than the others. It has been called the 
"focal point." In addition to this focal point many other objects or 
ideas are in consciousness. Every object which becomes a focal 
point seems to come to that point by gradually crowding out the 
objects which precede it. In turn this object gradually disappears, 
giving way to others. (The term "object" is here used to indicate 
anything toward which attention may be directed.) It is undoubt- 
edly true that many objects are in consciousness and influence the 
direction of the "stream of thought," that never reach the focal 
point. They never get inside the "fringe." The term conscious- 
ness in its narrower signification is applied to the focal point, while 
those objects which are in the fringe are said to be in subconscious- 
ness. There is yet another sphere of activity, the "unconscious." 
Here activity is so habitual that there seems to be no need for 
thought. The question might legitimately be raised whether there 
is any action without some readjustment, though it be slight; and if 
readjustment, then thought. Practically, however, habits do become 
so thoroughly automatic that thought, and so the conscious element, 
may be ignored. This would give then, with reference to con- 
sciousness, three divisions of activity; the conscious (in the nar- 
rower sense), the subconscious, and the unconscious. 

^''Psychology of Child Development, p. 31. 



36 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

The process of education, the reconstructive movement, is a 
conscious process. There is a break in old co-ordinations. The 
disjointed, vi^arring factors come to consciousness and the situation 
is controlled through the conscious reorganization of this content. 
The break generates the problem ; consciousness makes control 
possible. Let the disturbed situation be brought under control and 
the co-ordination that adjusts the situation remains and is a means 
for solving other problems. It is not enough that the problem be 
consciously present. There must be a solution if the experience is 
to have value. The more sharply the whole situation comes to con- 
sciousness, the more likely there will be formed an adequate solu- 
tion and the greater the value of that bit of experience in future 
adjustments. There is little or no growth in unconscious activity. 
The subconscious is more fruitful; in fact, it plays a large and 
important part in development. The fact yet remains that the 
extent to which a disturbed situation comes into consciousness, and 
a readjustment to the whole situation is "consciously" made, deter- 
mines the degree of efficiency of the resulting co-ordination and its 
value in future experience. It is only because so much more of 
our experience is in subconsciousness than in the center of atten- 
tion, that the subconscious plays so large a part in development. 
Consciousness present in some degree seems to be essential to 
growth. 

It follows, then, that in education there must be no minimizing 
of problems. Continually to smooth over the child's difficulties is 
to rob him of conditions essential to his growth. If the child is to 
think clearly and judge accurately, he must become keenly con- 
scious of his difficulties and realize fully the ground of their 
solution. To permit him to leave a problem half solved or vaguely 
understood is but to leave a barrier to future progress. Only in 
full conscious activity is the nature of the whole problem and the 
full meaning of its solution to be realized. Clear, keen intellectual 
activity is an essential condition of a thoroughly adequate develop- 
ment. 

It is important to understand clearly the place of the uncon- 
scious and the subconscious in intellectual development. These two 
terms cover instincts, reflexes, and fixed habits. The instinctive 
and reflexive activities are fundamental to life. The instincts lead 
to the securing of food, to self -protection, and to race-preservation. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 37 

The reflexes keep the organism going. These reflexes and instincts 
are due to inheritance. They are valuable assets handed down to 
us by our ancestry; acquisitions which have been retained because 
of their value. One's subconscious world is made up of these half- 
conscious reflexes, instincts, and habits acquired during lifetime, 
which do not come to full consciousness because of their automatic 
nature or because other factors are in consciousness that need atten- 
tion. A large part of one's subconscious world would come to full 
consciousness if permitted to do so. Attention is always directed 
to the point of greatest stress; it operates where there is greatest 
need. 

This vague "subconscious" content exerts tremendous influence 
in directing the stream of thought. It envelops the object of 
attention and clothes it with meaning. It would seem that an 
object is "familiar," not so much because of that which is con- 
sciously recognized, as for those things which are "felt" to be 
around and about it. It is because of the feeling that we could if 
we wished explain this and that feature of the object, that we could 
react to it in such and such ways, that make it a "known" object. 
This whole "felt" world belongs to the subconscious. We feel the 
direction from which the object has come and toward which it 
is moving. We feel that it is accompanied by an innumerable 
company of related ideas. These things are what give it meaning. 
The educator must recognize these influences. A difiiculty experi- 
enced often lies in this fringe. By directing the individual's atten- 
tion to these subconscious factors, and bringing them to the focus, 
often he will see the difficulty and readily solve the problem. 

On the other hand, it is of the utmost importance that by far the 
greater number of co-ordinations can, and do, remain in subcon- 
sciousness. It would be impossible for the mind "consciously" to 
attend to all the factors in even the simplest activities. Only 
because the mass of co-ordinations are fairly well "set" is it 
possible to direct attention to new difficulties. Further, these estab- 
lished co-ordinations are the tools for the solution of problems. The 
thoroughly organized and stable co-ordinations of the eye, the hand, 
the common percepts and concepts, the norms of judgment— these 
are what enable one to cope with new situations. If in writing 
attention must be "consciously" given to holding the pen, to spell- 
ing words, to securing correct grammatical forms, it would be 



38 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

impossible to give thought to the composition. The successful, 
valuable co-ordinations that stay with us are just what give power 
and make advance possible. The passing over of co-ordinations 
from the conscious to the subconscious, and to the unconscious, is 
absolutely essential to education. 

2. Suggestion and imitation. — Suggestion and imitation are 
closely related forms of activity. Because of their importance in 
education they will be taken up in some detail. 

a) Suggestion. Professor Baldwin defines suggestion as: 

from the side of consciousness .... the tendency of a sensory or an ideal 
state to be followed by a motor state, and it is typified by the abrupt entrance 
from without into consciousness of an idea or image, or a vaguely con- 
scious stimulation, which tends to bring about the muscular or volitional 
effects which ordinarily follow upon its presence.^** 

The only criticism the writer would offer here is on that part 
implied in the words, "entrance from without into conscious- 
ness." If the author means that thought is affected by an abso- 
lutely external and independent world, in so far, from the standpoint 
of instrumental logic, the definition cannot be allowed. It is 
true that the "sensory" or "ideal state" does appear in conscious- 
ness, but not " from without." It is due to the failure of habitual 
reactions to function, and the "sensory or ideal state" is the coming 
to consciousness of factors of this disturbed situation. 

Professor Baldwin further says : "The fundamental fact about 
all suggestion .... is, in my view, the removal of inhibitions to 
movements brought about by certain conditions of consciousness, 
which may be called 'suggestibility.' " ^^ This statement brings 
out clearly the logical point to be emphasized. A suggestion is just 
that which offers a possible solution to a problem. 

In discussing "what makes consciousness suggestible," Baldwin 
says: 

We may say, first, that a suggestible consciousness is one in which the 
ordinary criteria of belief are in abeyance; the coefficients of reality are no 
longer apprehended. Consciousness finds all presentations of equal value, in 
terms of uncritical reality-feeling. It accordingly responds to them all, each 
in turn, readily and equally. Second, this state of things is due primarily to 

^Mental Development : Methods and Processes, pp, 105, 106. 
^"Ibid., p. 107. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 39 

a violent reaction or fixation of attention, resulting in its usual monoideism, 
or "narrowing of consciousness." For belief is a motor attitude resting upon 
complexity of presentation and representation. Just as soon as this mature 
complexity is destroyed, belief disappears, and all ideas become free and 
equal in doing their executive work.*" 

From the point of view of instrumental logic, the "criteria of 
belief" referred to here are the organized ways of reacting. We 
"believe" either, first, that which has proven successful in the solv- 
ing of problems, especially if it has been thoroughly tested; or, 
second, that which we "think" would harmonize conflicting factors 
though we may not yet have had, or possibly in the nature of the 
case cannot have, the opportunity to test and verify. The word 
"belief" is often limited in its use to the second. In either case, it 
is the co-ordination that harmonizes our experience that is 
"believed." The statement that when "the ordinary criteria of 
belief are in abeyance" "consciousness finds all presentations of 
equal value" is objected to. Logically, what takes place is this: 
The organized reactions fail to function and beget a tension ; 
before a readjustment can be made, old co-ordinations, i. e., "cri- 
teria of belief," are broken up and the factors involved in the 
situation come to consciousness. "Consciousness" does not "respond 
to them all, each in turn readily and equally ;" the factors are not 
"free and equal." At the outset certain factors appear to be 
more closely related to the difficulty and more likely to be efficient 
in the solution of the problem than others. It is only after these 
fail that other alternatives are tried. It would be an exceedingly 
abnormal condition in which the breakdown was so complete that 
all factors stood out on anything like equal terms. The only sense 
in which all ideas are of "equal value" is that all of them are pos- 
sibly available factors in the solution of the difficulty. 

The essential point in suggestion is that in a disturbed situation 
a certain predicate arises which gives promise of effecting the 
desired result. The "promise" is the suggestion ; that is what 
makes it a suggestion. Now, in so far as in some particular fea- 
ture of that predicate more than others lies its hopefulness, that par- 
ticular feature might with reason be termed the suggestion. It is 
probable that a number of suggestions will be presented before the 
final, successful one is secured. 

*" Mental Development: Methods and Processes, p. 107. 



40 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

This "suggestion" operates in the unconscious field as well as 
in the subconscious and conscious ; but in the unconscious field it is 
reduced simply to a stimulus which gives the cue to the accustomed 
response. It is hardly necessary to add that such a cue exists only 
objectively. The "onlooker" observes certain states follow in serial 
order, each one being the cue to the succeeding one. It is in this 
sense only that the term suggestion can be applied to unconscious 
activity. In the subconscious state vague ideas are continually 
effecting reactions. These operate where the habits, not yet auto- 
matic, are so well formed that the disturbance does not come into 
the focus of attention. The disturbance is too slight as compared 
with other difficulties that demand attention. A difficulty that 
might ordinarily require close attention would, in the presence of 
more serious difficulties, be left to take care of itself, as it were, 
while the attention is directed to the more serious problems. It is 
within the field where consciousness is most active that "sugges- 
tion," as well as all other factors, comes to its full intellectual 
value. 

It is clear that suggestion is an essential element in all develop- 
ment. Using the term in its broadest sense, in which it stands for 
every factor that appears in consciousness as a possible solution of 
a difficulty, it is present in all intellectual growth. If it be held 
that there are in experience certain readjustments made which are 
purely accidental, in these, so far as accidental, suggestion does not 
operate. Suggestion gives the leverage for the solution of prob- 
lems. If all factors of a disturbed situation were on a dead level, 
if no one gave more promise of a solution than another, progress 
would be tedious and fortuitous. 

An educational theory must take into account this suggestibility 
in experience and recognize its universal operation. In working 
out an original demonstration in geometry experience has shown 
that the first thing is clearly to get before one the whole situation, 
to take account of stock, to find just what the problem is and what 
is on hand to work from. Sometimes the solution is then seen at 
once, but often it comes only after long and careful thinking. At 
first, there may appear no clue at all ; usually, however, there soon 
is discovered a starting-point that appears to lead in the right 
direction. Following up this, other points may be suggested and 
finally the whole demonstration may be revealed. Often, however, 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 4 1 

a line of reasoning is found to be fallacious, compelling one to go 
back to the beginning and start again. The whole movement is 
experimental, tentative. Suggestion after suggestion is tested until 
a valid proof is established. 

This description of actual experience is taken to be a fairly 
accurate statement of the logical movement in solving any intellec- 
tual problem. The difficulties encountered in geography, history, 
or literature are removed in much the same way. In teaching, it is 
of the first importance that the child come really to see the situa- 
tion, to see what he needs and what he has to work from. Then, 
if he is to get the full benefit of a solution, the child must be 
allowed to discover points that suggest a way out and to follow up 
these until he must abandon them, and sees why, or reaches a satis- 
factory solution. The temptation is strong for the teacher herself 
to suggest the way out. In her eagerness to get the final result, 
she forgets that it is only as the child actually works out his own 
problems that they are, for him, really worked out, that only in 
this way is it possible for him fully to appreciate the final outcome. 

In the education of the child the conditions that surround him 
should provide suggestions for the solution of his problems. As a 
matter of fact they do provide suggestions. It is too often that he 
is not allowed to use the suggestions which are at his disposal ; or, 
which is perhaps more common, he is given no assistance in the 
use of these suggestions. Indeed, the belief is all too common that 
the child has no means within his own experience for solving his 
problems, but that the task of supplying this material devolves upon 
the teacher. Even where there is a recognition of the presence of 
problems in the child's own experience, developed in the on-going 
of that experience, there is yet a lack of appreciation of the fact that 
the means of solution must be the child's own as well as the prob- 
lem. Really to be a suggestion to the child, it must have a vital 
relation to his experience ; it must be part and parcel of that experi- 
ence. It must really suggest. 

All experience is not of equal educational value. Some fields 
are richer in suggestion than others. The degree of suggestibility 
ofifered by any possible experience depends upon the relation of 
that experience to the previous life of the individual. Its value, 
educationally, is in just this degree of suggestibility which it ofifers. 
The teacher may, and should, direct the child's activities so that he 



42 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

will come into a richer life. She ought to lead him to experience in 
a vital way not only that which will bring to consciousness latent 
problems but also that which will give him suggestions for the 
solving of his problems. It is her privilege to exercise a large 
degree of influence as to what, among many possibilities, the child 
may actually experience. This is an important part of the teacher's 
work. 

b) Imitation. This is one form of suggestion. Professor 
Baldwin defines imitation as follows : 

There is in all the instances [examples of imitation referred to] some 
kind of constructive idea, a "copy," in more or less conscious clearness, which 
calls the action out, and which it is the business of the imitator to reinstate 
or bring about somehow for himself." .... Wherever there is life there 
is means of continuing advantageous stimulations drawing up to them by- 
active movement, or by other actions whose evident purpose is the same.*^ 
.... [And,] The adaptation of all organisms is secured by their tendency 
to act so as to reproduce or maintain stimulations which are beneficial. In 
this way only can new reactions be made available for repetition, and so 
secured to habit. But this reaction, which tends to secure a continuation of 
its own stimulation, is exactly the nervous process of conscious imitation." 

Mr. King criticizes Professor Baldwin's view of imitation.** 
He maintains that Professor Baldwin has described a certain form 
of individual reaction from the social side; that the child himself 
does not imitate ; that the activities which others call imitation are 
performed by the child not in order to imitate but in order to get 
new experience. Mr. King says : 

With the child the emphasis is not on the copying of a certain act, but 
on the attainment of a certain experience that comes through the copying 
or imitating. From the first beginnings of control, the child is seeking to 
define his experience, or render it more definite. He is on the alert for 
stimuli that will enrich and enlarge his experience." 

From the standpoint of instrumental logic, Mr. King's point of 
view would seem to be more nearly the truth. The statement of 
Professor Baldwin that, "Wherever there is life there 'is means of 
continuing advantageous stimulations by drawing up to them by 
active movement, or by other actions whose evident purpose is the 
same," is, logically, but the means by which, in a disturbed situa- 

*^ Mental Development : Methods and Processes, p. 267. 

^"^ Ibid., pp. 277, 278. "Psychology of Child Development, chap. x. 

"Ibid., p. 278. *^ Ibid., p. 119. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 43 

tion, experience tends to readjust itself for its further on-going. 
Mr. King says truly that imitation is but suggestion looked at from 
the social side. From the standpoint of the onlooker, the experi- 
ence of others is more or less adequately reproduced in the 
individual. The reason the child imitates is that the social environ- 
ment offers certain experiences which help him "find" himself. Just 
why the individual finds it desirable to respond in an "imitative" 
way can be accounted for, in part, by like inherited tendencies ; we 
have inherited from a common ancestry. Also, being an individual 
in relation with other individuals, a part of a social whole, the good 
of each individual is attained in co-operation with other individuals. 
It would seem to follow naturally that acts which one individual 
performs would be practically the same that others in the same 
social group would perform. The value of imitation, as in all 
forms of suggestion, is that it enables one to solve problems. 
Because the problems of the child are largely the problems of the 
race and because he has inherited tendencies to act as the race 
has acted, naturally he will tend to solve his problems as the race 
has solved them. Further, the social group in which the child now 
lives has largely the same problems and the same inherited tenden- 
cies that he has, and, hence, their activities will in a measure be 
such as he wishes to perform; consequently, to "imitate" his 
fellows will be the most natural, as well as a most helpful, thing 
to do. Over and above this there is the conscious recognition, 
which the individual comes to have, that he can learn from others 
and thus come to realize himself more economically and more satis- 
factorily. The "unconscious" tendency to imitate, if there be such, 
seems to be due to inheritance. 

As stated above, imitation aids in the solution of problems. 
There is always a larger whole, a thought-situation, in conflict, 
which the imitation is somehow to help in readjusting. The real 
nature of imitation is brought out by reference to the fact that no 
one imitates everything. There is vastly more that one does not 
imitate than that he does. One imitates an act because the imi- 
tation of that particular act will help solve a problem ; the others 
will not. 

On the educational side what was said of suggestion applies to 
imitation. In organized society, to realize hopes and ambitions it 
is necessary to conform to social usage, and to conform is to imi- 



44 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

tate. The child finds a weahh of material — beliefs, customs, insti- 
tutions — which he may seize upon and utilize. Through imitation 
the entire social life becomes available for the solution of his 
problems. The whole range of human activities, present and past, 
are put under tribute to the individual. The imitating of primitive 
racial activities is a common "method" in the schools. The grow- 
ing complexity of social and industrial life makes the task of 
interpreting his conditions increasingly difificult to the child. By 
going back to those primitive methods by which his ancestors 
solved their problems in a simple way, the child can appreciate 
more easily the factors involved in these same problems and the 
principles according to which they are solved. Imitating these 
simpler forms of activity, the child comes better to appreciate the 
meaning of his complex environment. The method is logical pro- 
vided the difficulty which the child is to solve is one that has grown 
up out of his own experience, a real difficulty for him ; and if his 
experience has been sufficient to enable him to appreciate the his- 
torical material used. The danger here of making unwarranted 
abstractions is evident. 

The psychological basis of imitation is in preformed co-ordina- 
tions. In all "forms of thought" old modes of reaction persist and 
tend to reappear when occasion offers. This tendency of previous 
experience to persist in the form of definite co-ordinations is of ut- 
most importance in education. The whole theory of apperception, so 
strongly emphasized by the Herbartians, is just this tendency of 
previously formed co-ordinations to "assimilate" new experience, 
and is, as Baldwin has pointed out, a form of imitation. Old 
habits tend to persist without modification or, to state it on the 
intellectual side, we would explain all new experience by means of 
old ideas. In any case, after a readjustment has been made, after 
the new experience has been interpreted, related, and has taken its 
place as a part of our "universe," it will be found that, after all, our 
experience has not undergone any very great change. While it is 
undoubtedly true that every new experience begets some modifica- 
tion, yet in those situations which necessitate a very profound modi- 
fication of established principles the change is slight as compared 
with the vast field of practically unmodified experience. It is just 
because there is so much that, at any given time, does not undergo 
serious change that one is able to "understand" his experience. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 45 

The child whom the teacher would conduct into entirely new fields 
of thought, into experiences that have no close relation to his past 
life, is placed in a situation where growth is impossible. He is 
deprived of the tools necessary for the accomplishment of a task 
set for him. Imitation and suggestion function adequately only 
within a thought-situation that has developed in the midst of real 
life problems; which problems have their whole meaning in the 
failure to function of certain previously formed co-ordinations. In 
so far as these co-ordinations do persist, in so far is there imitation. 
3. Attention and interest. — Education consists in the recon- 
struction of past experience and the consequent building up of a 
larger and better organized world of present experience. This 
reconstruction, on the logical side, is the thought process which 
takes place within a disturbed situation. It is in this disturbed 
situation that attention is active. Wherever there is thought there 
is attention. Any object of thought is an object of attention. To 
be attentive means that thought is active. The term is applied, 
particularly, to a continuous application of thought to some specific 
purpose. The actual work of accommodation, of readjustment, is 
going on at a point that is called the point of attention.*" Attention 
has been likened to vision where some one object, or objects, occu- 
pies the center of vision surrounded by other objects that become 
less distinct the farther they are from the center. Royce says : 

Present at any one time to one's mind is a small portion of the flowing 
stream of mental contents, in which one can in general distinguish at least 
two, and sometimes more, elements of content (perceptions, feelings, images, 
ideas, words, impulses, motives, hopes, intentions, or the like), while beside and 
beneath what one can distinguish there is the body of the stream or (to 
change the metaphor) the background of consciousness, where one can no 
longer distinguish anything in detail, although in some other moment one 
may easily note how the whole background has changed." 

This "small portion of the flowing stream" is the center of 
attention, the "focal point." This focal point is just where, in the 
disturbed situation, the breakdown is most serious. In any such 
situation, the portion to be reconstructed is usually a very small 
part of the whole. To repeat: it is just because the great mass of 
habits persist and are available as means, that any solution is 

*' Angell, Psychology, p. 64. 

" Outlines of Psychology, p. 85. 



46 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

possible. Any very serious derangement would mean a collapse. 
In this disturbed situation the whole force of thought, the whole 
attention, centers in the point of difficulty, while the great bulk of 
organized life becomes the means for solving the problem. When 
the given point is adjusted, the stress, and so attention, is trans- 
formed to some other point. 

Attention is bound up with interest. One attends to the things 
in which one is interested. Dr. Dewey defines interest as "impulse 
functioning with reference to an idea of self-expression." *'^ There 
is always the outgoing activity directed toward some object for the 
purpose of realizing certain value. 

The point to be emphasized in this connection is that this effort 
for self-expression, this interest, is due to a disturbed situation. 
So long as all goes smoothly there is no interest. There is no dif- 
ferentiation of experience into an object of value set over against 
the subject. But when the impulse is active, when the end is per- 
ceived, when the value involved is recognized, and yet some 
difficulty is in the way of its realization, then we have interest; and, 
like attention, the interest centers in the point of difficulty ; further, 
one is interested in anything and everything that promises to master 
the difficulty, to solve the problem. An individual becomes intensely 
interested in the thing he needs in order to accomplish his purpose. 
When the object is secured, the end realized, that particular object 
disappears from thought and new objects of interest arise. 

The connection between interest and attention is now clear. 
Both refer to one and the same psychological process, the recon- 
struction of experience in a disturbed situation. There is always 
present a problem more or less definitely defined. To that problem 
one attends and in that problem is one interested. The two terms 
refer not to different facts, but to different attitudes that may be 
taken with reference to the same facts. When one is thinking of 
the activity of the thought process as directed toward some object 
of interest, it is "attention ;" when thinking of the activity as 
actually ftmctioniiig, as in process of realizing the desired end, it is 
"interest." 

There is a disposition among psychologists to make emotion, or 
feeling, a characteristic element of interest. Unquestionably the 
"feeling tone" is present throughout the entire disturbed situation. 

*^ Interest as Related to Will, p. 230. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 47 

When habits fail to function there is a tension. This tension is the 
basis of emotion. Both interest and emotion are due direct!}- to this 
obstructing of activity. To make one a characteristic of the other 
is to misinterpret the whole psychological process. The fact is, a 
highly emotional state indicates a minimum of functioning. As the 
process of reconstruction begins actually to make progress, the 
emotion diminishes while ,the interest is just coming to its 
maximum. 

Attention and interest are necessarily implied in the educative 
process. If education is the reconstruction of experience, if this 
reconstruction takes place because of the vital interest in realizing 
the purposes of the self, if thought is consciously to attend to that 
reconstruction, and if control is to be secured only through such 
attention directed toward interesting objects, the absolute necessity 
of securing attention and interest is evident. But the problem for 
the teacher is not so much how to get the child to attend, as how to 
get him to attend to certain things that she considers valuable. The 
difficulty here lies in the fact that the teacher's interests are not the 
same as the child's. The solution lies in their unification. So long 
as the activities proposed by the teacher do not appeal to the 
child, so long will he continually revert to those that do interest him. 
As a rule the child will readily respond to a demand on his atten- 
tion. If the "work" proposed appeals to the child as of value, if he 
believes the doing of it will give certain desirable results, there is 
no lack of interest. The child is eager to do things that are, to him, 
worth while. If the "work" does not interest him, often there will 
be divided attention; apparent outward attention may be accom- 
panied with continual mind-wandering. Really to direct the child's 
thought the teacher must seize upon points that are of vital interest 
to him, real problems in his experience. The available points may 
have but remote connection with the end which the teacher has in 
view ; but by getting hold of these real interests, there is a chance to 
direct the child's activities into the more fruitful fields of activity. 
When the problem proposed by the teacher really becomes the 
child's problem, there is no question of attention and interest ; nor 
will there be any question of genuine intellectual advancement. 

The practical application of this theory is not so impossible as 
it may seem at first glance. The teacher sees the child laboring 
under certain difficulties that would be removed if he understood a 



48 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

certain principle. For instance, in beginning the study of geography 
the child has difficulty in getting relative distances and locations 
that might be cleared up if he understood the use and meaning of a 
map. He has but a vague notion of the problem and is entirely 
ignorant of how to solve it. To refer to the ordinary political map 
would only add to his perplexity. There could be no possible 
intrinsic interest in studying it. The problem now for the teacher 
is to seize upon a real but simple difficulty of the child's of which 
he is, or may easily become, conscious and which the child may 
clear up in his own mind by a crude drawing. From this starting- 
point more complex situations may be worked out and the notion 
of expressing relative distance and location graphically thus be 
enlarged and systematized so that the ordinary map is intelligible, 
and becomes the efficient instrument for interpreting the previously 
vague geographical notions. The fundamental point is that genu- 
ine interest in a crude drawing, or in a more elaborate map, lies in 
the fact that it is an instrument, a tool, by which the child is able to 
solve a real difficulty. So long as the child is engaged in the solu- 
tion of a, to him, real difficulty there will be no lack of attention or 
interest. 

4. The judgment. — Under logical theory the nature of reflective 
thought was discussed. It was shown that not all experience comes 
to consciousness as reflective thought, that in early childhood, 
among savages, uncivilized people, and more or less in the life of 
every man readjustments are made which are not "consciously" 
attended to. These readjustments cannot be said to be "out of 
consciousness," but they are not in the focus of attention. The 
term subconscious is used to indicate this field of experience. 

Reflective thought is the field of conscious readjustment. Here 
the individual is fully aware of the need of readjustment and "con- 
sciously" casts about to overcome the difficulty. The act of read- 
justing a disturbed situation is called the judgment. The term is 
applied particularly to reflective readjustment. In the judgment 
the point of difficulty, the subject, is singled out, and co-ordinations 
that still persist are selected as possible predicates to explain the 
subject. It might happen that many possible predicates would be 
"tried on" before success is attained. Attention was called to the 
fact that the final outcome of the judgment is a larger co-ordination 
which includes within itself the contending factors. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 49 

The essential characteristic of the process of education is this 
act of judging, this reconstructive movement which is the exact 
point of growth. Just here, and only here, is there progress. The 
general outline of a co-ordination, or point of view, may be formu- 
lated under some particular stress and the details worked out 
gradually. Or one may be hardly conscious of the first beginning; 
the entire process from inception to final form may have come 
about gradually and with no serious break at any point. In any 
case the changed attitude is due to a reconstruction of previous 
co-ordinations or points of view. To be development, there must 
be continued readjustment, continued acts of judgment. These 
acts occur in response to specific demands. To be of value these 
demands must be genuine; they must appeal to the child himself as 
actually worth while. They must have arisen out of- the child's own 
activity and present an actual bar to his progress ; difficulties that 
he must overcome if he is to accomplish his purposes. He will 
then be eager to solve these problems just because they are his 
problems, and his life. 

To judge from common practice, education, as to content, is the 
acquisition of certain organized material that is considered neces- 
sary for the individual's future welfare. When this body of 
"truth" is comprehended, when the facts and principles in them- 
selves and in their relation to each other are understood, there is 
power, ability to appreciate life and accomplish purposes. Truth is 
objective. It is something external to and independent of the 
human mind and must be taken over into the understanding. The 
problem of the teacher is how to bring about this transfer effect- 
ively and economically. This seems to be the common view of 
education. There is an almost universal lack of appreciation of 
the fact that the subject-matter of education, the material upon 
which or with which thought operates, is material of thought's own 
construction. It is built up out of the individual's own experience 
through successive acts of judgment. Truth that someone else 
developed has absolutely no educational value to the child except 
as it becomes part and parcel of his own experience. Accredited 
truth, facts, and principles that have become established, are invalu- 
able. The heritage of the race cannot be ignored. But only as the 
experience of the race suggests to the individual the solution of his 
ozvn problems, the interpretation of his oiV)i experience, can it have 



50 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

any real educational value. Without an act of judgment, without 
an actual reconstruction of one's belief, there can be no education. 

History, arithmetic, geography, grammar, are taught as 
a coherent body of valuable truth. The emphasis is upon the 
content, the body of truth; as though the possession in memory of 
this truth is the thing of prime importance. The child is to be got 
ready for living. He is to be equipped for future trials. There is 
almost a total lack of appreciation of the fact that the really impor- 
tant thing is for the child to interpret and organize his present 
vague and disconnected experiences. The only genuine excuse for 
studying the facts of history noiv is that just now the child needs 
these facts. The time to study the facts of history systematically 
and logically arranged is when the child has come to feel that he is 
a part of a larger social whole ; that the experiences of this larger 
whole both present and past are a part of his life, or at least are 
vitally connected with his life; and that a knowledge of this racial 
development, particularly the trials and vicissitudes of his own 
nation, does give his own experience added value and meaning. 
Only gradually does the child become distinctly conscious of the 
full value of this historical material. That he does feel its worth 
and does by its help actually reconstruct and better organize his 
experiences is the genuine test of its value to him. 

There must be a large degree of freedom in education. The 
child must be free to formulate problems and free to exercise his 
judgment in solving them. As it is impossible to know all the 
child's past experience ; as it is impossible, therefore, to know all 
his problems and his consequent interests ; so it is impossible to pro- 
vide in detail in advance for his course of development. The "in 
detail" is the point of emphasis here. The educator ought to 
understand the laws of mental growth and acquaint himself with 
the conditions under which the child has been and is developing; 
he should know something of society, the direction of its move- 
ments and the probable demands, in a general way, that society 
will make on the child when mature. With this information it is 
possible to lay out along broad lines a curriculum into which the 
average child will "fit," and greatly to facilitate his growth. But 
just what this particular child at this particular time will be inter- 
ested in, what will be his problem, no one can foretell. It is the 
duty of the teacher who has the child in charge to study his 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 5 1 

immediate needs, to supply in detail the conditions essential for 
his growth; but the child must be free to react upon these condi- 
tions. The teacher may be of assistance in helping the child "find" 
his problems and, especially, may the teacher put him into the way 
of solving them, but the real work must be done by the child him- 
self; he must actually solve his problem, actually reconstruct his 
point of view, if there is to be any real growth. Above all 
the child needs a rich environment, intelligent direction, 
and opportunity to initiate and solve his own problems. These are 
the conditions that make for sound judgment and intelligent 
development ; these the school should provide for the child. 

V. THE HYPOTHETICAL CHARACTER OF EDUCATION 

Under logical theory there were discussed the formation and 
testing of hypotheses, the question of the thoroughly hypothetical 
nature of the judgment, and the processes of induction and deduc- 
tion in the formation of general principles. The purpose was to 
show that knowledge is essentially hypothetical. By "knowledge" 
is here meant those co-ordinations that are constructed in order to 
interpret, or harmonize, a problematic situation; and they are 
accepted as knowledge, or "truth," so long as they satisfy the 
demand. 

Knowledge, at any point in experience, gets its validity in its 
success in accomplishing what thought sets out to do. With further 
experience there is always the possibility that a particular truth, 
apparently fixed and sure and certain, may undergo revision. But the 
belief is next to universal that education consists largely in acquir- 
ing certain information— laws, principles, facts — that is fixed, 
unchangeable, and true, independent of thought. Knowledge is 
stamped with authority. It is accepted as final. The only question, 
if a question is raised here at all, is in getting real knowledge. 
If "real" it is absolute. 

If the instrumental type of logic is a true interpretation of the 
function of thought this whole attitude so characteristic of current 
education is absolutely and fundamentally wrong. Education is a 
process of evolution; each individual builds up his own world of 
reality, of knowledge, of truth, out of the products of his own 
activity. That only is my truth which enables me to "understand" 
my experience. Truth comes in th^ interpreting of given facts of 
experience. This interpretation consists, logically, as has been 



52 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

pointed out, in forming" a new co-ordination, being the readjust- 
ment of a disturbed situation in which the "facts of experience" 
have been at odds with each other. Further experience may com- 
pel a radical modification of the first point of view. Real growth, 
genuine education, is just this continual reinterpretation of experi- 
ence. 

A geographical fact, for instance, does not really become 
knowledge to the child until it, for him, has assumed vital connec- 
tion with the world of reality as he sees it. There must have been 
such a readjustment of his habits, his way of looking at things, 
as will include and account for this bit of experience. Further- 
more, and the point so often overlooked, this readjustment will not 
be made until there appears some demand for it ; there must be a 
problem, a difficulty, however slight, which calls for this readjust- 
ment. So long as a fact remains disconnected, exists as mere 
information, it has not become genuine knowledge at all. When 
the fact is interpreted, it not only now takes on a modified meaning, 
but there is more or less modification of other truth. Future 
experience is likely still further to alter its meaning. It is this con- 
tinued modification of experience present in all development that 
makes education essentially hypothetical. 

The truth of this theory is demonstrated in actual, practical 
experience. The "objective" physical world and the "subjective" 
thought world arise out of a unitary experience. The same fact is 
now regarded as external truth, and again as merely subjective. 
The accepted explanations of the movements of the earth and other 
physical laws are instances of such data which were once regarded 
as mere ideas, possible explanations of certain phenomena, but 
which have come to be regarded as absolute fact. It has already 
been pointed out that the criterion for the acceptance or rejection 
of a given datum as fact or idea is a thoroughly practical one; that 
so long as laws and facts meet the practical demands upon them, 
they are fixtures ; in so far as they fail we modify our conception 
of them and they cease to be to us just what they were. 

This hypothetical character pervades the entire world of physical 
objects — ground, trees, animals, our bodies — though most men 
would abhor the suggestion that their interpretation of such reality 
is a construction of thought. But is the conception of a material 
substance anything more or less than a postulate which thought has 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 53 

set up in order to account for certain experiences? There are 
color, form, touch, smell, taste. Thought is not satisfied to look 
upon these as distinct, separate experiences that are merely sub- 
jective. The notion of a material substance which somehow bears 
these qualities does, at least in a measure, satisfy the human mind, 
though it must be recognized that "substance" is a purely hypo- 
thetical creation. All one can really "know" are these qualities; 
the explanation is hypothetical. 

The conception of law is built up from experience. Take the 
law of gravitation. One is sure of certain experiences. To account 
for and harmonize these experiences, there has been formulated the 
law of gravitation. No one doubts but that the falling of bodies has 
been experienced by the human mind ever since the earliest stages 
of evolution. But there came a time when thought could no longer 
accept this as a brute fact. It must be explained in some way. 
The first conception of the law was undoubtedly regarded as a 
mere hypothesis, a possible solution of the problem. In its first form 
it was, no doubt, exceedingly crude and incomplete. Further 
observation, testing, and revision brought it to a point where it 
did satisfy thought; though additional experience may have 
demanded, and may yet demand, further revision. If the law of 
gravitation is now regarded as fixed and absolute, it is only 
because, just now, it is accepted; there is no question up; it is meet- 
ing the demands upon it. Generally speaking, all law, however 
absolute it may now be regarded, has had just such a history. 

The whole vast field of scientific investigation presents indis- 
putable proof of this hypothetical nature of "truth." All scientists 
recognize the use of the hypothesis in arriving at their conclusions. 
The more profound thinkers recognize the hypothetical character 
of these conclusions. The history of any science presents a succes- 
sion of hypotheses put forth with the hope, or belief, that they 
would satisfy the demands of experience. A given hypothesis is 
accepted for a time, only later to be discarded for a more hopeful 
one. The present status of each science represents its present stage 
of advancement; the future will bring new experiences and new 
revisions. 

The introduction of the laboratory method in the schools is an 
attempt to approach certain study-subjects from the standpoint of 
scientific inquiry. In so far as this method encourages a spirit of 



54 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

investigation and the formulation of hypotheses to "explain" dis- 
coveries, it has the sanction of sound logical theory. That method 
which uses laboratory experiments merely to "prove" laws that 
are regarded as final statements of truth is wholly devoid of the 
true scientific spirit. The laboratory method has been confined 
almost wholly to the teaching of the sciences in secondary schools 
and higher institutions. The spirit of investigation should be 
extended to other subjects of study and down into the elementary 
school. There is no reason why geography and history, for 
example, should not be taught from this standpoint. 

Let instruction be given from the standpoint of the child's 
need, and the study of particular subjects be developed from this 
point of view. The average child is eager to get information. 
Questions arise on almost every conceivable subject. Attention 
needs only to be given to some particular phase of his experience 
and the questions are multiplied. The child has the spirit of 
inquiry. The teacher has only to utilize and direct this tendency. 
The objection may be raised that with such a method it would be 
impossible to develop a subject logically. Such objection would 
naturally come from one who exalts the subject-matter. But if 
knowledge for the child has value only in reference to his need, 
the objection is groundless. The child must learn to arrange his 
own subject-matter and, hence, it must be after he gets it. The 
skilful teacher will so direct the child's activities in securing this 
subject-matter that the problem of logical arrangement will be 
very greatly simplified. 

Recognition of the fundamentally hypothetical character of 
knowledge and of the process by which it is continuously developing 
is essential to a full appreciation of the nature of education. The 
static view of truth tends to stagnation ; the dynamic view inspires 
continuous growth and development. 

CONCLUSION 

The problem which confronts the practical teacher is this: 
"How can the child's activities be so directed that while he is doing 
things that are interesting, in the normal, natural way, he will at 
the same time be getting that experience, that knowledge, and that 
training which will best fit him for life?" The chief difficulty, as 
pointed out above, lies in seizing upon those interests of the child 
which may be so directed as to get the sort of experience needed. 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 55 

The tendency has been to go to one of two extremes; either to 
emphasize the individuaHty of the child to the exclusion of social 
demands, or, as is more usual, to make the social demands para- 
mount and ignore the individual. Too many teachers see only one 
or the other of these courses open to them. They fail to see that 
each is an abstraction. When it is remembered that the child is 
what he is because of the whole past experience and development 
of the human race, that he is a product of all the past ; and when it 
is remembered that every other individual, and all those tendencies 
and characteristics and institutions which go to make up the sum 
total of present social life, are also products of that same past; it is 
not so strange a thought that the child in his inherited characteris- 
tics, impulses, and interests would be fitted exactly to the society 
in which he lives. Indeed, it would be a strange thing if the funda- 
mental impulses and interests of the child did not come to their 
realization just in this social life about him. Further, the whole 
environment of the child from birth has been just this same social 
life. Both the inherited tendencies and social environment go to 
make the individual, in his inmost tendencies and interests, fitted 
for the social life that he is to live. 

The practical problem is how to discover these fundamental 
tendencies and give them proper direction. The following sugges- 
tions are offered as an aid to the solution of this problem. To be 
brief, the discussion will be limited to the work of the lower grades 
of the elementary school. It is in these lower grades that we find 
the material offered to the child most at variance with his inter- 
ests. In the upper grades, in the high school, and in college, the 
student usually becomes vitally interested in the subjects of study. 
Gradually, the child comes to appreciate the value to him of history, 
geography, literature, and other subjects. The extent of this 
appreciation measures the value of any subject of study. It is just 
because the child on entering school has not come to have this 
appreciation, and in most cases is not expected to have, that the 
work is dead and formal. Most courses of study are based upon 
the assumption that the chief business of the first few years of the 
elementary school is to teach the child reading, writing, and the 
elementary number operations ; that is, the child is to be taught the 
tools of learning, so that he may be prepared in the following years 
really to get knowledge. On the contrary, the child of six ought 

tore. 



56 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

to be doing things in which he is as vitally interested as is the adult 
in his work. The knowledge acquired ought to come as the interpre- 
tation, or understanding, of his experience. It follows that the 
child ought to be taught the tools of learning in order to get a 
vitally interesting content, and he ought not to he taught them 
until he needs them. How to do this is a problem. 

When a child enters school the first duty of the teacher is to 
acquaint herself with his natural disposition and primary interests. 
Emphasis should be put upon the motor side ; allow the child to do 
interesting things — play games, dramatize stories, and engage in 
various sorts of handwork. The first consideration is that the 
child be really interested in these activities ; the second is that 
these activities be so directed that he will be getting really valuable 
experiences. 

In an attempt to work out the problem of elementary education 
from this standpoint, it was found that children are vitally inter- 
ested in the activities of their immediate environment — domestic, 
social, industrial, and civic. For instance, the children made a 
study of foods and especially of bread. They became interested in 
the source from which bread comes. They learned that bread is 
made of flour, that flour comes from wheat, that wheat is grown in 
the field. They studied the nature of soils, the need of sunshine 
and rain for the growing grain, sowed the grain in boxes, ground 
wheat between stones and in a coffee mill, bolted the flour through 
genuine bolting cloth, and baked their flour into bread. It was 
found that the children were intensely interested in all these forms 
of activity. It did give them the answers to questions that are 
coming up in the life of every child, and, at the same time, it gave 
them a knowledge of industrial conditions that are an essential part 
of education. This is but one of many topics studied. Others, 
among food-stuffs, were meats, rice, and fruits. Under clothing, 
they studied wool, cotton, and silk. Under shelter, they took up 
house-building, and actually constructed and furnished a house. 
The same general plan was followed in the first three grades. In. 
the second and third grades not so many topics were taken up, but 
those selected were studied more thoroughly. The results were 
very satisfactory. 

Along with this study of an interesting content were taught the 
formal subjects of reading, writing, arithmetic, and language. 



i 



THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 57 

These were taught in immediate relation to their use, and not until 
needed. In the teaching of reading, the purpose was to get the 
content. The emphasis was always on what the child reads rather 
than how. The child learned to read in order to get the story 
told. In number work, during the first two years, he was expected 
to perform only those number operations called for in his ordinary 
school activities. It was found that by taking note of these demands 
for number operations, the child learned to count, to read and write 
numbers, to perform simple fundamental operations, and this in a 
most na'ive concrete way. This gave him an excellent foundation 
for the abstract number work of the higher grades. Language 
work was treated in a similar way. Everything was taught with a 
view to the purpose it was to fulfil, and when the demand for it 
arose. The teaching of this formal side of education was made 
incidental to the child's development, but it was in no sense 
accidental. 

As the child advances through the grades, gradually his intel- 
lectual life becomes more complex and there is possible a wider and 
wider separation of means and ends, and yet the child see the 
vital relation of means to end. For instance, the child will come to 
feel the need of learning abstract number operations and become 
interested in them, just because he does realize the value of them in 
his life. There comes a time, then, for the study of these "detached" 
spheres of knowledge. But the point is they must never become 
really detached. This is of vital importance. 

This attempt is only a beginning, but it is believed that it is in 
the right direction. There is a strong tendency in modern educa- 
tion, especially in America, toward a saner method in education. 
The tendency toward the laboratory method is one indication of 
this movement. The child must have the means for the solution of 
his problems. These problems grow out of the child's contact with 
nature and the industrial processes by which man controls nature, 
and out of his relation to social institutions. As the child's real 
problems grow out of his practical experience, so must he find their 
answer in practical experience. On the industrial side he must 
have opportunity to study the products themselves and actually to 
perform processes of manufacture. In seeing, handling, doing, 
the child gets control of, and so understands, his environment. 
The laboratory method gives this opportunity. 



58 THE LOGICAL BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

Serious difficulties hinder the carrying out of this method of 
education. There must be a change in textbooks. Most books in 
use have been written from the social point of view ; they lay stress 
upon information and upon authority. There must be books to 
which the child may go for information as he needs it, but not text- 
books that profess to exhaust a subject, and that are put into the 
hands of the child for him to "learn." The child must study his 
problems first-hand. The textbook should be an aid to this study. 
Further, our school buildings must be planned differently. 
The memoritor-in formation idea seems to dominate school archi- 
tects. The laboratory method, the study of material at first-hand, 
the working out of industrial processes, the possession of a "work- 
ing" library to which the child may go as he needs information, all 
necessitate a radical change in school architecture. Above all, the 
school building must be a workshop provided with the necessary 
books, tools, and material. 

The best methods of today point in the direction here suggested. 
The organization of the schools on a sound logical basis is the para- 
mount problem that confronts education. 

It is not forgotten that moral development is a fundamental con- 
sideration in education. Thought normally issues in practical con- 
duct. But the purpose of this paper has been to point out the 
logical basis of education, not the ethical. That task is left to 
other hands. 



MAR 16 1908 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 811 511 3 



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